.EEy OLI rTION^Ia Y PT.TT^rA R "'M 



/ 

CONTATJTIN 



BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL 
SECRET MEMOIRS 

OF THE • 

BTJOnXpARTE FAxilLY. 




— Miserum est alitma incvmbere famcc, 
Nc t'ollapsa ruant subductis tccta columnis. 

lis poor relying on another's fame : 
For t^e the j^lars but away, a^d all 
The superstructure must in ruins' fall. 

Stepnei^, 



■■ iMai Mi I, 



FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, 

WITH ADDITIONS, ORlf^lNAL AND SELECTED. 

BALTIMORE: ^''^' ':^M^^'' 

PillNTED FOR G.KEATINGE AND L. FRAILEY. 
SEPTEMBER 1806. 

I 






"i-m^iML 



COPY-RIGHT SECURED ACCORDING TO LAV, 




■iLlt 



\_ 



/ /if 4 




TO THE READER. .7 

In the foUoimng pages you tmll perceive the 
M system of monarchical projligacy carried to 
a greater extent than any %ve read of in history. 

Under the specious garb of Republicanism^ 
Buonaparte , like a th\ef hi the night, has stolen 
by intrigue the liberties of a nation, ivhich had ex^ 
tricated itself from its fetters, and astonished Eu^ 
rope by a Revolution noble in itsfrst appearance y 
but permitted all the glory of the act to vanish, 
and nexv chains forged for their liberties, which 
nothing short of a miracle can free them from. 

That the French Revolution, at its commence- 
menl, icceivcd the approbat on of the good and 
truly great is no way extraordinary ; that the 
American people should be of the first to admire 
that great event is no i&ay wonderful ; the princi^ 
pies of gratitude and honour vibrated in unison for 
the success of their former allies and for the prin^ 
ciples which they advocated. 

The counter Revolution in France by the in^ 
trigues of Buonaparte and his acomplices, is an 
axvful lesson for the people of this country ; xvhen 
they can see a nation of 30 millions of free citizens 
alive to the most feeble exertion of arbitrary pow- 
er, and ready to a man to check any measure that 
could have a tendency to restore monarchy, yet 
zve find in a very little time, that same people ca- 



"Vifr 



^'-^-mivis ■ 'y-^m 



TO THE READER. 

jokd info a surrender of their rights andjinally 
become the slaves of a base hereditary empire. 

It is- in vain zee look in history for an individual 
to match the ambition of Buonaparte, who treats 
kings as his subjects; like Gregory VII. moimt^ 
ing on horse-back ivith his feet on the neck of an 
Emperor, ivhile two monarchs held the stirrups . 

In this publication, it is presumed that the 
English writer has brought to vieio those traits of 
character, of the Buonaparte family, which are 
reprehensible, and coloured to the brightest shade 
his fancy and zeal for his country dictated. But 
in the display of the principles which actuated him, 
that he should silver tvanton attacks on some of 
our xvorthy citizens, is by no means justifiable ; the 
exposure of the fallacy of those remarks has been 
attended to in this edition. 

It is the intention of the publisher of this work 
to add to it another volume of the same size, 
and extracted from the same works, which 
will contain the characters of those who distin-- 
guished themselves by placing Buonaparte on the 
throne, and the exaltation of that family to su- 
preme power, 

Talleyrand, Barras, Fouche, Moreau, Piche- 
gru, Sfc, xcill display a complete developement of 
the establishment of an empire, which seems in- 
deed as a burlusque on monarchy^ and may in the 
end overturn every throne in Europe. 



LONDON REVIEWERS' 

CHARACTER OF THE 

REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH 



LITERARY JOURNAL. 

" The author, "whom we understand to be an old officer, gives 
in these volumes, a sketch of the most remarkable passages in 
the Jives of the relatives of Buonaparte. He had an opportuni- 
ty of being personally acquainted with many of the characters 
whom he describes, whose lives, with a few exceptions, exhi- 
bits only a detail of crimes, at which human nature revolts. 
The style is simple and perspicuous, and the work is deserving 
of public patronage. 

EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. 

" The contents of these volumes are interesting in a remark- 
able degree ; as detailing, either from personal knowledge, or 
from accredited works of other writerc, the lives, conduct and 
fcrimes, of every person distinguished as a relative of the Cor- 
sican upstart, who has hitherto with impunity oppressed and 
plundered the continent of Europe ; and as exhibiting at the 
same time, a clear display of the extraordinary kind of police 
by which Paris is now regulated. Such a mass of moral turpi- 
tude as is here displayed, yet iu a form that leaves us little room 
to suspect its authenticity, makes us blush for our species. The 
public crimes of the Buonaparte family, are not more odious 
than the vices of their private lives are flagitious. We believe 
that no reader who begins to peruse this collection of republi- 
can biography, will feel inclined to relinquish it till he has 
gone through its pages. The subject is universally interesting 
and the incidents are so well narrated, as to justify us in giving 
the book our unqualified recommendation. 

ANTI-JACOBIN REVIFAV. 

" It were much to be wished that these volumes could find 
their way into every house, and into every cottage in the unit- 
ed kingdoms : the perusal of them would scarcely fail to excifc 
abhorrence of the wretches who now threaten to convert oyr 
country into the same scene of desolation, blood and vice, as 
they have converted all other countries into, in which their in- 
trigues, or their arms hare secured them a footing," 



VI 



CHARACTER OF THE WORK. 



BRITISH CRITIC. 

" It gives us much satisfaction to see this work so soon appear 
in a second, third and fourth edition, and not a little pleasure 
to think that our just commendation may in some degree have 
promoted its successful circulation. Of the men who now make 
so distinguished an appearance upon the theatre of France, who 
are exercising in their several spheres the crudest tyranny, 
rolling in luxury and wealth, the greater part arose from the 
meanest situations, and have only attained the highest by a se- 
ries of the most abominable crimes. The principal facts al- 
ledged of tkem are alike recent and notorious. Besides this 
the character of the writer, with which we have been made ac- 
quainted, stamps on the publication the sanction of unqestion- 
BLE AUTHENTICITY. Many of the relations, ipse misserrimus vidz. 
His friends and relations, and property, have been the victims 
of their cruelty. He himself has languished in their dun- 
geons, and there it was he collected materials for this work, and 
probably for others, from which we doubt not, he will obtain 
an equal degree of reputation.** 



IMPERIAL REVIEW. 

" The Revolutionary Plutarch is the production of a * Lite- 
rary recruit', though an officer of ancient date ; and it is not 
choice that has made him exchange the sword for the pen, and 
exhibit to public animadversion from his stud)^ those regicides 
and rebels, whom he should have preferred to have combatted 
in the field, rather than to be a biographer of persons, many of 
whom he has known in the ranks, commanded, or seen confound- 
ed in a nameless croud, and in a well deserved obscurity. From 
4he style of this specimen, the reader will judge of the spirit in 
which the biography is written ; but he should not hastily pro- 
nounce the author corrupt or partial, because he expresses in 
strong and unreserved terms, the feeling of his mind on the 
events he records — Of Napoleonc Buonaparte, perhaps ; no co- 
temporary, nor any futurf* historian, will write in such terms as 
to give general satisfaction. The author of the Revolutionary 
Plutarch, presents him in the least favourable color ; the ob- 
scurity of his early life, the meanness of his origin, his personal 
vices, and the accumulated infamy of his family, are unsparingly 
portrayed. 

" In the life of Napoleonc, the author has rendered a com- 
mendable service to those who are deluded by speculations on 
the cheapness of a republican government. 



itACTER OF THE WORK. Yii 

" On the whole, and subject to the cautions that we have gi- 
ven, we have no hesitation in recommending these volumes to 
the attention of the public." • 

From the above it will appear, that the memoirs of the Buo- 
naparte family, selected from a work which is acknowledged 
by all the reviewers, as worthy of perusal, has justly excited 
the curiosity of the citizens of these states, as well as those who 
dare peruse it, in his dominions. It would be satisfactory to 
the publisher, if in this work the author had not introduced se- 
veral American citizens, whose conduct and character certainly 
cannot be exajted or admired, by ranking with such revolution- 
ists, whose progress has been jnarked by the downfall of every 
virtuous principle, and during the course of these ' Eventful 
years, no instance occurs of the triumph or reward of virtue — 
vice defeats vice — faction surmounts faction — public spirit and 
patriotism are the daily themes of all leaders — but the facts 
present only a deformed and hideous prodigy^, the shame of the 
age and a blot on the page of history. 



CONTENTS. 



Page, 
Preface, 3 

London Reviewers' Character of the Work, 5 

CARLO BUONAPARTE, the Father of the EmpcroT, g 

XETiTiA BUONAPARTE, the Mother of the Emperor^ 19 
CARDINAL FESCH, the Emperor's Uncle, 19 

JOSEPH BUONAPARTE, the Empcror^s cMest Brother, 23 
jfAFOLEONE BUONAPARTE, the Emperor^ 28 

JOSEPHINE BUONAPARTE, the Emprcss, 97 

EUGENius DE BEAUH'ARNOis, her Son , 152 

FANNY DE BEAUHARNOis, her Daughter, 153 

xuciEN BUONAPARTE, ^/le Empcrofs Second Brother, 155 
LOUIS BUONAPARTE, the Emperor's Third Brother^ 174 
JEROME BUONAPARTE, the EmperoTs Fourth Brother, l84 
Vindication of JOSHUA barney, 191 

HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS, PriuCeSS JOSEPH BUONA- 
PARTE, 201 
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE, 205 
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE, 214 

Remarks on the Conduct of the Patterson Family, rela- 
tive to the marriage of jerome buonaparte. 223 

MADAME JER03IE BUONAPARTE, ibid. 

MADAME BACCHioci, the Empcror's eldest Sister, 238 
PRINCESS SANTA CRUCE, the Emperor^s second Sister, 244 
PRINCESS BORGHESE, ci-devant Madame Le Clerc, the 

Emperor's youngest Sister, 231 

GENERAL MURAT, the Empcr'ors Brother-in-law, 261 

MADAME MURAT, the EiuperoTS third Sister, . 292 



THE 

REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH, 



OR 



MEMOIRS 

OF THE '/ 

BUONAPARTE FAMILT. 



THE families cf legitimate sovereigns are known ; and 
their ancestors are esteemed^ extolled^ censured^ or calumni' 
ated^ according to their irierits^ talents^ and vices; or as 
envy is excited^ or hatred provoked. Of the lineage of 
usiu-pers^ generally-t little account is given^ and that little 
is doubtful; because^ -while their adherents fatter them, 
their opposers revile them; and -while some assert that they 
descend from an ancestry as illustrious as eminent^ others 
pretend to prove their forefathers to have been as ?nean as 
they were criminal, — • 

Carlo Buonaparte, the father of him who has usurped 
the throne of France, and dragged his race and relatives 
from obscurity, was a gentleman descended from a Tuscan 
family, but settled two hundred years in Corsica ; although 
they are forced to acknowledge that, during the civil trou- 
bles, he had served as a common soldier under General Pao- 
li ; and that it was the beauty of his wife, and her connexion 
with Mr. De Marboeuf, commander for the King of France 
in Corsica, which made him leave the field for the forum, 
by procuring him a place as the King's attorney. 

Carlo Buonaparte, however, was a man of so little ability, 
that it required all Mr. De Marboeuf 's partiality for Madame 
Buonaparte to keep him in a situation where he could not 
transact even the little that was necessarily required of him. 
Ue was dull and mischievous, but not jealous ; his wife 

B 



10 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

brought him eight children, whom the ami de la mahon^ Mr; 
D.i ?*iarbc£uf, assisted to bring up, and to provide fnr : and 
if they owed their existence to a Corsican, their education 
was paid for by a Frenchman. Possessing no more indus- 
try than capacity, he lived and died poor, and bequeathed 
his offspring and their mother to the kind care of her protec- 
tor and supporter. 

So far, and no farther, go the ingenious admirers or adu- 
lators of the First Consul ; but who were his grandfather or 
great-grand-father, they pass over in silence. On the other 
hand, the enemies more to usurpation than to the usurper, 
enter into several distinct particulars ; which, although pub- 
lished in France, have never been contradicted, or proved 
not to be genuine, except by sending the supposed author to 
the Temple, and afterwards, without a trials to Cayenne : 
there was printed in 1800 a pamphlet, which they called 
'* The Genealogy of Brutiis^ Aly, Napoleone Buonaparte^ the 
Corsican Successor to the French Bourbons ;" of which the 
following is an extract : 

'* After the disgrace of Theodore, King of Corsica, the 
Republic of Genoa published an oficial paper, to make him 
and his adherents more ridiculous and despised, entitled, 
* A List of all persons ennobled by the Adventurer calling 
himself King Theodore of Corsica.* This list was printed 
by the widow Rossi, at Genoa, in 1744 ; and contains, pages 
6 and 7, some curious remarks upon, and concerning the 
usurper's family, more to be depended on, than those which 
f^ar, interest, meanness, and adulation have fabricated since 
he seated himself upon the throne of the Bourbons. 

*' When, on the 3d of May, 1736, Porto- Vecchio was at- 
tacked, a butcher from Ajaccio, called Joseph© Buona^ 
brought a seasonable assistance with a band of vagabonds 
amd robbers ; who, during the civil troubles, had chosen him 
for their leader ; in return. King Theodore the next day 
created him a nobleman, and permitted him, as a memento 
of his services, to add to his name of Buona, the final termi- 
nation, parte. His wife's name was Histria, daughter of a 
journeyman tanner at Bastia. Carlo Buona, the father of 
Josepho Baona, kept a wine-house for sailors ; but being ac- 
cused and convicted for murder and robbery, he died a gal- 
ley-slave at Genoa in 1724 ; his wife as an accomplice, and 
who, on account of her extremely vicious character, was 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 11 

called La Rirba, died at Genoa in 1730, in the house of cor- 
rection These were the grand and great-grand parents of 
his Consular Majesty : who his father was, is well known ; 
as also, that he by turns served and betrayed his country du- 
ring the civil wars. 

" After France had conquered Corsica, he was a spy to 
the French governors, and his wife their mistress. From 
this pure and virtuous source descends Brutus, Aly, Napo- 
leone Buonaparte, the successor of the Bourbons, born in a 
country whose inhabitants were, in the time of the Romans, 
held ill such detestation for their infamous and treacherous 
disposition, that they would' not have them evc^n for slaves ; 
and of whoni Seneca, who resided long among them, has said, 
as if he had imbibed the prophetic spirit, 

Prima lex, illis ulcisci ; altera^ vivere rapto ; 
Tertin^ mentire ; quarta^ negare Deos, 

SENECA DE CORCICIS. 




12 

LETITIA RANIOLINI, 

MOTHER OF BUONAPAnXE. 

IT is no coynmoii fortune, that has changed a mistress 
of one of the governors of the King of France into a mo- 
ther of an Emperor of the French ; and transformed an 
obscure^ poor^ and guilty Corsican adult r ess into a conspi- 
cuous and wealthy French Imperial Princess. Such a sur- 
prising occurrenccy is another evidence of the immoralitij of 
our age^ of the perversity and degradation of Republican 
Frenchmen^ and of the selfish and dangerous policy of ma- 
ny continental cabinets. What hereditary rank can here- 
after pretend to respect; xuhat virtue hope for rewards ; 
Tvhat honor e?cpect distinction; what talents advancement; 
and what eminence consideration or admiration P In a time 
Tphen tlie highest authority is seized^ saluted and revered 
171 the greatest of criminals^ who with audacity and impu- 
?iity elevates native meanness : bestows titles on corruption 
and vileness. and surrounds an imperial throne rvith the 
dregs of society ; what encouragement has honesty^ what 
support^ what consolation has loyalty^ and zvhat dread has 
rebellion and infamy ? There is no goal in the universe 
that coidd not furnish a purer Emperor than Napoleone the 
Firsts and no house of correction^ no brothel can be disco- 
vered in the worlds from which might not be dragged for- 
rvards a more innocent Empress than fosephine^ and a 
more innocent and worthier Imperial Prmcess than Letitia 
Buonaparte^ and the other Imperial Princesses of the same 
vile race. 

Letitia Raniolini, the motlier of the Buonapartes, is 
by some said to be the daughter of an attorney, by others, 
of a blacksmith. At the age of fifteen, she made a faux 
pas with a friar, and at sixteen married the soldier Carlo 
Buonaparte, Her edueatioh had been so totally neglected , 
that when she \\ras picked up by Mr. De Marboeuf, she 
could neither read nor write ; and her own brother, a poor 
curate, was engaged and paid by him for instructing her ; 
"ivhile he himself taught her to perform the honours of his 



' THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 13 

liouse. Possessing a natu'-al, though uncultivated genius, 
she soon repaid, by her improvement and attentions, the 
expences and anxiety of her friepd. In her younger years 
she was pretty, rather than handsome ; her conversation 
was trivial, but rendered pleasing and agreeable by her man- 
ner of expressing herself. She was accused of blending 
the Italian cunning with the Corsican duplicity, and prudery 
with wantonness ; and, to cover all fashionable vices with 
religious hypocrisy, she went regularly to church, and reli- 
gion always appeared to occupy a mind, vacant, if not 
wicked. She confessed once in the week, got her absolu- 
tion, sinned, and confessed again. She wore, and yet 
wears, upon her person, the relics of some saint ; she was, 
and is 5^et, strict in her external devotions, fast-days, and 
inflictions on herself of severe penances and mortifications^ 
After the death of her benefactor, and by the Revolution, 
which deprived her of a pension settled on her by him, she 
was reduced to the greatest indigence, tier eldest daugh- 
ter haying married Bacchiochi, a Corsican, established as a 
cotton-manufacturer at Basle, she received from him an an- 
nuity of six hundrpd livres (25/. Fterling) ; upon which, 
and some millinery work of her other daughters, she sub- 
sisted, until Napoleone obtained Irom the hands of Barras^ 
the widow of the guillqtined General Beauharnois. 

Before Napojeone went to Egypt, in 1798, he deposited 
a capital, of which the interest, twelve thousand livres (of 
500/. sterl.) was left at her disp(?kal, to provide for herself, 
her youngest son, and two daughters, yet unmarried. 

Ouring the absence of Napoleone, she was regarded 
with such an air of caution, suspicion, and superiority by 
his wife, that, notwithstanding all her Christianity, she cai^ 
hardly forget or forgive it. She was despised as a person 
without birth ^nd education, and shunned or insulted be- 
cause she was believed to watch the conduct of her daughter- 
in-law, which could not always stand the scrutiny. ' When 
Napoleone had usurped the supreme power, she obtained 
apartments in the castle of the Thuilleries ; but though she 
lives under the same roof with Madame Napoleone ; she 
neither likes her, nor has she spared any pains to set her 
son against his wife. With the charitable disposition of a 
Corsican bigot, she has more than once intrigued to persuade 
the Consul to a seperatjon^ if not to a divorce ; but his po.- 



14 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

licy and fear have gotten the better both of his own desire, 
and the' intrigues and hatred of his mother. 

Since her daughter's marriage with Louis Buonaparte, 
Madame Napoleone has gained much influence over her 
husband, and in proportion lessened that of his mother, 
whom the Arch-bishop of Paris and her own confessor, 
both in the interest of Madame Napoleone, have advised 
to seek a reconciliation, and forget what has passed, or is 
supposed to have passed, injurious or offensive to her ; and 
their advice has so far been followed, that these two ladies 
live in {>eace, though not in friendship or familiarity. 

When the religious concordat had been agreed to and ra- 
tified in France, the Pope-s nuncio, the Cardinal Legate 
Caprara, presented her from his Holiness with some very- 
precious relics ; amongst others, a finger of St. Xavier, 
having the quality to keep off evil and haunting spirits, be- 
cause though her consular son neither believes in a God, 
nor in his angels and saints, she dreads ghosts, goblins, and 
the devil ; and such is her superstitious and ridiculous ter- 
ror, that she never dares to remain alone in a room, or af- 
ter dark to go out without somebody to accompany her. — 
She passes several hours every day in consulting soisdisant 
witches, in whom she places great confidence, and in hav- 
ing her fortune told by cards or in coffee-cups. 

It is reported in the Corsican family, that when Madame 
Buonaparte was pregnant with Napoleone, " an Algerine 
woman, slave to a Sardinian lady, travelling in Corsica, 
predicted that the child in her womb should live to create 
kings aiyl dictate to emperors ; but that he should perish at 
an early age by the hands of a young woman, with a large 
lip, small nose, fair hair, and black eyes." She has such 
an implicit faith in this prediction, that two of her relations, 
whom she sent for from Corsica, were ordered back to that 
island, under the idea that they bore some resemblance to 
such a person. It is even said that Napoleone himself is 
not entirely free from scruples, and therefore approves his 
mother's failings, and weak and laughable precautions. A 
priest lately made his fortune by staggering her belief in this 
j)rophecy, and assurmg her, as a christian astrologer^ that, 
arcording to the Apocalypse, " She is to live to the age of 
ninety ; after her death be proclaimed a saint, and that her 
^.on Napoleone is to be present at her canonization." As 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 15 

she is onlj^ sixty-two years old, and this priest is respected 
as a very virtuous and devout man, this has weakened or 
taken away a part of her apprehension of Napoleone dying 
young. Many of her intimates think that this priest was 
engaged by Somebody in the Buonaparte family to diminish 
her own and her son's alarms. 

Madame Buonaparte's apartments, besides relics, are 
crowded with phials, with drops to prolong life, and to res- 
tore youth and vigour j with boxes, contauiing sympathetic 
powders for the continuation of her son's success in the 
world, and his affection for her, and with counter-poisons 
to preserve his life from the attempts of his enemies. 

At certain periods of the year she does not suffer any body 
besides herself to prepare and dress the Consul's victuals ; 
and when he is not travelling, she tastes every plate con- 
taining nourishment destined for him, because a necroman- 
cer has calculated, that during some months of every year 
Napoleone is exposed to die by poison ; but that at all times 
her care and inspection over his food is useful, and a preser- 
vative of his existence, health, and safety. 

Madame Buonaparte has rather been a weak than a good 
mother to her children, oftener over looking their faults 
than correcting their errors, or reprobating their offences. — 
She has taught them to pray to God, but not to let their 
conduct bespeak their reverence of religion, and their faith 
in a Divinity. All her sons are of vicious and immoral 
principles, and all her daughters have been early relaxed, 
corrupted, and licentious. Lucien and Madame Lc C lerc 
were her favourite children fror/fi their youth : but Napoleone 
was his own master, and her's, even when a boy ; and she 
rather dreads than loves him, rather fears any accident hap- 
pening to him on account of its consequence to the v/hole 
family, than with regard to him as her son ; and it is for 
the life of the First Consul, not for the life of Napoleone 
Buonaparte, that she is so very anxious, that she ransack? 
scriptures, consults conjurors, believes in witchcraft, prays 
to God, and excommunicates the devil. 

When Napoleone had determined to place an Imperial 
diadem on his guilty head, though he was certain of the sub- 
mission of his slavish senators, legislators, and tribunes, he 
feared some explosion, or at least some resistance, from 
Moreau, Le Coiube, and other discontented generals, and 



le REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

therefore; under different pretences, sent his nearest and 
dearest relatives either abroad, or into the provinces on the 
frontiers, to wait quietly there for the issue. To his brother 
Joseph he gave a commission in the army on the coast, and 
made him president of the Electoral College at Brussels ; 
Lucien had already retired to Italy in disgrace, on account of 
his marriage virith an honest woman who was no princess j 
and Louis was made president of the Electoral College at 
Turin j Jerome was wandering for pleasure on the other side 
of the Atlantic ; and his sisters travelling for their health on 
the othc r side of the Alps. The cause of these measures of 
safety was easily perceived and penetrated mto, even by the 
Corsican's French subjects ; he could therefore, without add- 
ing deception to suspicion and fear, send his dear mother to 
Italy. But thinking, no doubt, that those who in such a 
cowardly manner had renounced their liberty, could not have 
much sense left, and that they would easily be induced to 
adopt as realities even the greatest absurdities and improba- 
bilities, he exiled his mother to Rome ; and his pensioners 
and spies disseminated, that this dutiful act of her affection- 
ate son, was a punishment for her disobedience in not oppos- 
ing with vigour her other son, Lucien Buonaparte's impro- 
per marriage. It also told his favourites and courtiers to be 
upon their guard, not to incur the displeasure of a despot 
whose severity did not spare even the most beloved by him. 
During her journey to and in itaiy, Madame Letitia was 
attended by a numerous suite in six carriages, and an escort 
of twenty-five guidtis. Her manner of travelling from Paris 
in 1804, forms a curious contiast to her manner of travelling 
to that capital in 1794; at that period she had taken only 
three places for herself and five of her children in the waggon 
from Foulon to Paris, so that when three of her party were 
riding, the other three were walking ; and notwithstanding 
this economy, when arrived at her destination, the clerk at 
the waggon-office detained her and her cmldren's bundle of 
clothes, sue being unable to pay thirty livres, 1/. 5s, due for 
her journey. In 1304 siie was addressed and complimented 
every where, lodged in chateaus or palaces, and feasted by 
governors, generals and prefects. In 17.4, she was suspect- 
ed, from her color, of being a wandering gvpsey, stopped and 
insulted in every village, often lodged in prisons, or half 
starving with her children in the receptacles for the lowest 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 17 

vagabonds. The cannons of the Fort St. Angelo announced^ 
in 1804, her arrival at Rome , where, after being hailed by 
cardinals, she fraternized with a Pope, dined with princes, and 
slept in a princely hotel fitted up for her reception. Differ- 
ent indeed was her modest entry at Paris in 1794: after be- 
ing detained and stript at the waggon-office, she was for hours 
repulsed, and refused shelter in garrets or in cellars, and 
would probably have paesed the night in the street, had not 
the pretty eyes of her daughters inspired Charitable senti- 
ments in the bosom of a national officer on duty in a guard- 
house near the Palais Royal, where he, upon certain condi- 
tions, allowed them to share a part of his supper, and of the 
straw upon which he reposed. 

After violence, treachery, and cruelty had delivered into 
Buonaparte's hands the Duke of Enghien, Pichegru, Geor- 
ges, and Moreau, and the tliree former had been murdered, 
and the latter disgraced, terror silenced discontent, despo- 
tism banished opposition, and tyranny crushed patriotism ; 
and no person in France dared murmur, much less complain, 
at the death-blow given to the rights of subjects, as well as 
to the prerogatives of legitimate soveieigns, by the Corsican 
Napoleone the First proclaiming himself Emperor of the 
French. To organize this abominable usurpation, and to 
effect both a religious and political reyolution, the succours 
of the Pope were nece&sary. To delude this pontiff, whose 
mental and corporeal weakness are not inferior to his spiri- 
tual power, could not be a very difficult task, since all his car- 
dinals and counsellors were bribed, and all his favorites and 
relatives purchased. The newly created Imperial Highness 
Letitia was^ however, charged by her son to employ her 
pious zeal in this affair. 

Devout from idleness and habit, more than from sincerity 
and conviction, being above the age of temptation ; chari- 
table because she had more money than she wanted, and not 
because she had herself been poor i and diffident, not from 
modesty, but from knowing her own incapacity and origm ; 
her conduct at Rome, from not being searched through, had 
not only been considered as prudent, but edifying, and had 
often obtained the applause of Pius VII. She never missed 
a religioujs ceremony, matins, masses, vespers or processions ; 
and her brother, Cardinal Fesch, took care that her i)iety 
should not pass unnoticed. She was never refused any pri- 

C 



i8 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

vate audiences of the Pope when she demanded them, orA h6 
listened to her conversation not only without suspicion, but 
with pleasure. He had presented her with relicks of the 
most famous Saints of Rome ; she received his blessing when 
with him, and his prayers accompanied her when absent. 
He had for her sake condescended to consecrate with his 
own hands not only a double velvet helmet she had made for 
Napoleone, but some part of her own and of all her other 
children's wearing apparel. His Holiness had himself, dur° 
ing her first six weeks residence in his capital, given her four 
general absolutions of all her sins ; and in a secret bull, writ- 
ten with the miraculous blood of martyrs, absolved Napo- 
leone as a renegade from all his sins of apostacy, as a rebel 
from his sin of perjury, and as an assassin from the sins of all 
his murdering and poisoning deeds. 

To augment with his mother the number of his emissaries 
round the Pope, was therefore not a bad speculation of the 
revolutionary Emperor. And indeed, if report be true, af- 
ter his Holiness had repulsed the unanimous council of the 
Sacred College, he could not feel strength enough to resist 
the devout supplication of Madame Letitia, who alone, by 
her influence, occasioned the Pope's sacrilegious journey to 
Paris, where' she, at her return, on her first interview with 
Napoleone, in reward for the service she had rendered him, 
was kicked out of the room, because she dared to implore his 
forgiveness and ask for his reconciliation with his brothers 
Lucien and Jerome. 

The allowance of this revolutionary Princess amounts now 
to six millions of livres a year (250,000/.) Her jewels and 
diamonds are valued at four millions of livres (173,000/.) 
She is lodged gratis in the Imperial palaces, and one hundred 
and fifty persons, including four confessors, are attached to 
her household. 



19 

CARDINAL FESCH. 

UNCLE OF BUONAPARTE. 

This Sketch of " his eminence," Cardinal Fesch, the Unck 
of his Imperial ow^ Royal Majesty, ^^e Emperor of the 
French, is extracted from the ^'Secret History of the 
Court and Cabinet of St, Cloud.** 

Joseph, Cardinal Fesch, was born at Ajaccjo, in Cor- 
sica, on the 8th of March, 1753, and was in infancy re- 
ceived as a singing boy, Cenfan* de chaeurj in a convent of 
his native^place. In 1792, whilst he was on a visit to some 
of his relations, in the island of Sardinia, being on a fishing 
party, some distance from shore, he was, with his compa- 
nions, captured by an Algerine felucca, and carried a cap- 
tive to Algiers. Here he turned Mussulman, and until 
1790 was a zealous believer in, and professor of, the Alco- 
ran. In that year he found an opportunity to escape from 
Algiers, and to return to Ajaccio, when he abjured his rene- 
gacy, exchanged the Alcoran for the Bible, and in 1791 was 
made a constitutional curate, that is to say, a revolutionary 
Christian priest. In 1793, when even those were proscribed, 
he renounced the sacristy of his church for the bar of a ta- 
vern, where, during 1794 and 1795, he gained a capital by 
the number and liberality of his English customers. After 
the victories of his nephew Napoleon in Italy, during the 
following year, he was advised to re-assume the clerical ha-r 
bit ; and after Napoleon's proclamation of first consul, he 
was made archbishop of Lyons. In 1802 Pius VII, deco- 
rated him with the Roman purple, and is now a pillar of the 
Roman faith, in a fair way of seizing the Roman tiara. If 
letters from Rome can be depended upon. Cardinal Fesch, in 
the name of the emperor of the French, informed his holi- 
ness the pope, that he must either retire to a convent, or 
travel to France, either to abdicate his own sovereignt\', or 
inaugurate Napoleon the first, a sovereign of France. With- 
out the decision of the sacred college, effected in the man- 
ner already stated, the majority of the faithful believe that 
tiais pontiff would have preferred obscurity to disgrace. 



2a REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

While Joseph Fesch was a master of a tavern, he mar- 
ried the daughter of a tinker, by whom he had three child- 
ren. This marriage, accordinj^ to the republican regula- 
tions had only been celebrited bv the muTiicipality at Ajac- 
cio. Fesch, therefore, u')on again entering the bosom of 
the church, left his maiicinal wife and children to shift lor 
themselves, consideri'^g himself, still, according to the ca« 
norical laws, a barheU r. But Madame Fesch, hearing in 
IPOI, of her cidevant husband's promotion to the archbishop- 
ri-'! of Lvons, wrote to him f r some succours, being with 
her children reduced to great miserv. Madame Letitia Bo- 
naparte answered her letter, inclosing a draft of six hundred 
livres, (25l.) informing her that the same sum would be 
paid for every six months, as long as she continued to reside 
at Corsica j but that it would cease the instant she left that 
island. Either thi iking herself not sufficiently paid for her 
discretion, or enticed by some enemy of the Buonaparte fa- 
mily, she arrived secretly at Lyons in October last year, 
where she remained unknown until the arrival of the Pope. 
On the first da} his holiness gnve there his public benedic« 
tion, she found means to pierce the crowd, and to approach 
his person, when cardinal Fesch was by his side. Profiting 
hy a moment's silence, she called out loudly, throwii^g her- 
self at his feet—*"'' Holy father ! I am the lawful wife of car- 
dinal Fesch, and thes€ are our children ; he cannot, he dare 
not, deny this truth. Had he behaved liberally to me, I 
should not have disturbed him in his present grandeur ; \ 
supplicate you, Holy Father, not to restore me my husband, 
but to force him to provide for his wife and children accord- 
ing to his present circumstances— i^/?ia — aUoe a matta^ san- 
tlsimo padre ! — She is mad — she is mad — Holy father, said 
the cardinal ; and the good pontiff ordered her to be takea 
care of to prevent her from doing herself or her children any 
mischief. She was, indeed, taken care of, becau e nobody 
^ver since heard what has become either of her or her child- 
ren ; and as they have not returned to Corsica, probably some 
snug retreat has been allotted them in France. 

I'he purple was never disgraced by a greater libertine than 
cardinal Ftsch j his amours are numerous, and have ofti n 
involved him in disagreeable scrapes. He had, in 1803, 
an unpleasant adventure at Lyons, which has since made his 
ctaj^ in that city but short* Having thrown his haixdker- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 23 

chief at the wife of a manufactiirer of \ht name of Girot, 
she accepted it ; and gave him an appointment at her 
house, at a time in the evening, when her husband usually 
went to the play. His eminence arrived in disguise, and was 
received with open arms — But he was hardly seated by her 
side before the doors of a closet were burst open, and hit 
shoulders smarted from the lashes inflicted by an offended 
husband In vain did he mention his name and rank ; they 
rather increased than decreased the fury of Girot, who pre- 
tended it was utterly impossible for a cardinal and archbishop 
to be thus overtaken with the wife of one of his flock ; at 
last madam Girot proposed' a pecuniary accommodation, 
which after some opposition was acceded to j and his emi- 
nence signed a bond for one hundred thousand livres, 
40001. upon condition that nothing should transpire of this 
intrigue — a high price enough for a sound drubbing. On 
the day which the l?ond was due, Girot and his wife were 
both arrested by the police commissioner, Dubois, (a brother 
of the prefect of police at Paris) accused of being connected 
with coiners, a capital crime at present in this country. In 
a search made in their house, bad money to the amount of 
3000 livres, 1251. was discovered ; which they had received 
the day before from a person who called himself a merchant 
from Paris, but who was a police spy sent to entrap them. 
After giving up the bond of the cardinal, the emperor grar 
ciously remitted the capital punishment upon condition that 
they should be transported for life to Cayenne. 

This is the prelate on whom Buonaparte intends to confer 
the Roman tiara, and to constitute a successor of St. Peter, 
It would not be the least remarkable event in the beginning 
of the remarkable nineteenth century, were we to witness 
the Papal throne occupied by a man, who from a singing 
boy, became a renegado slave ; from a Mussulman a con- 
stitutional curate ; from a tavern-keeper, an arch-bishop ; 
from the son of a pedlar, the emperor ; and from the hus- 
band of the daughter of a tinker, a niember of the sacred 
college. 

His sister, Madame Letitia Buonaparte, presented him 
in 1802, with an elegant library, for which she had paid six 
hundred thousand livres, 25,000l. — and ;^s nephew NapoT 
leone, allows him a pension double that amount. Besides his 
dignity as a prelate, his eminence is ambassador frcm France 



22 



REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 



at Rome, a knight of the Spanish order of the golden fleece, 
a grand officer of the legion of honor, almoner of the empe» 
ror of the French. 

The archbishop of Paris is now in his 96th year ; and at 
his death, cardinal Fesch is to be transferred to the see of 
this capital, in expectation of the triple crown, and the keys 
of St. Peter, 




[^ 



23 



JOSEPH BUONOPARTE, 

The emperor's eldest brother^ 

Joseph Buonaparte, the eldest brother of the Firsi 
Consul, was. before the Revolution/ a clerk to an attorney 
at Ajaccio in Corsica. Having less vanity and less talents 
than nviny of the other members of his family^ he passed 
his time in obscurity and penjary, and continued quietly to 
reside in his country during its occupation by England. 

When the crimes of his brother Napoleone had thrown 
the mistress of Barrass into his arms, with the command 
over the army in Italy^ the intrigues of the Directory caus- 
ed Joseph to be chosen, for the department of Liamone, a 
member in the Council of Five Hundred. In this place he 
seldom ascended the tribune, or made himself remarked 
for any thing but his silent vote, always in favour of the 
Directorial faction and its plots to oppress and enslave 
Frenchmen* In the spring of 1797, he was suspected to be 
Barras' spy upon the conduct of the loyal members of the 
Legislative Body, who shunned, despised, and insulted 
him. From this disagreeable situation he was relieved by 
his brother's demand, and his promotion by the Directory, 
in August the same year, to be Ambassador at Rome. 

Pius VI. the virtuous sovereign over the Papal territory, 
had some few months before, by numerous territorial and 
pecuniary sacrifices, bought and concluded a peace with 
Napoleone Buonaparte, lor the French Republic and its 
governments. Of the contracting parties, the Pope, the 
only sufferer, and who alone had any real complaints to 
make, was the only sincere one. The directorial rulers and 
their general were at this period tormented by the fury of 
an universal republic ; and their favourite plan and ambition 
was to revive the ancient Roman commonwealth. No 
sooner, therefore, was the peace at Tolentino signed^ than a 
swarm of jacobin emissaries were sent to Rome, to conspire 
and spread disaffection and atheism among the subjects of 
the Holy See. Determined to carry their point by their old 
means of exciting insurrections, the Directory had chosen 



m 



34 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCIL 

Joseph Buonaparte to protect, by his diplomatic character, 
and as a privileged person, the rebellious and revolutionary- 
insurgents and traitors instigated and instructed by republi- 
can France. From the moment of his arrival, plots, in- 
surrections, and incendiary placards w<.re daily produced ; 
under his influence, all persons confined for treason and 
sedition, or, as he gently termed it, for political opinions, 
were liberated from prison ; his palace became their constant 
rendezvous ; and he appeared as the paifon of a fete, at 
which all the vagabonds and desperadoes in Rome were col- 
lected, called The Feast of Libtrty I \ hese men, headed 
by French jacobins, formed a plan for revolutionizing Rome. 
They begun their career by erecting poles, as trees of libera 
ty^ surmounted with red caps, and dancing round them at 
midnight, and by forming false patroles to elude the police, 
and to throw the city into confusion ; and fixed on Innocents- 
day for the completion of their project. In the afternoon 
of the day, or on December 28th, 179f, a large palty as- 
sembled in the street called the Lungara, opposite the Am- 
bassador's residence, where a Frenchman attended, deliver- 
ing to them national cockades, and six Paul-pieces, (35 shil- 
lings) to be expended in liquor. Their conversation, direct- 
ed by prepared incendiaries^ turned on the common topics 
of popular complaint, the distresses of the poor, and the 
dearness of provisions : a revolutionary abbe made a long 
harangue, interlarded and enforced by perverted texts from 
Holy Writ, to prove that the time was arrived lor the over- 
throw of their existing government. 

Animated by these discourses, and secure of ptdtection 
from the French Ambassador, Joseph Buonaparte, the mob 
sallied forth, seized the guard-house, and attacked the Ponte 
Sesta. At this place, however, they were repulsed by the 
military, and pursued to the Ambassador's hotel, the Cor-* 
sini palace, whither they retired for shelter. Joseph Buona- 
parte and his associates, hastening from their apartments, 
rushed into the midst of the mob with drawn swords ; a 
great tumult and some firing ensued, in which a dozen per- 
sons lost their lives, among whom was General Duphot, af- 
fianced to Joseph's sister. 

Immediately on this event, Joseph Buonaparte retired to 
his palace, and, on the ensuing morning, at six o'clock, 
quitted Rome, obstinaiely deaf to all propositions of ex* 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 25 

planation or apology. He forwarded from Florence an ex- 
aggerated account of this ti ansaction to France, which fur- 
nished the Directory with the pretext that they had so long 
and ardently desired. In vain did the Papal Government 
offer every kind of acknowledgment and atonement ; in vain 
did they tender implicit and unconditional submission ; or- 
ders were immediately issued for General Berthier to revo- 
lutionize Rome, and give up the country to pillage. 

This faithful detail, related by loyal and able contempo- 
rary writers, unties the Gordian knot of French republican 
diplomatic chicanery, and the revolutionary Machiavelism 
of its ambassador ; and almost proves what an Italian au- 
thor printed at Verona in 1799, that General Buonaparte 
destined his brother Joseph, and his brother-in-law Duphot, 
for the two first consuls of the (by France) renewed Roman 
Republic; but which the well-merited death of Duphot, 
and the different views, and perhaps jealousy of the Direc- 
tory, prevented from taking place. 

Of the conduct of Joseph Buonaparte on this occasion 
opinions are not much divided ,• even Frenchmen agree, 
that he must want as well honour, religion, delicacy, and 
probity, as talents and sense, to suffer himself to become 
the despicable tool of ambition, or of the ambitious ; and 
it is not a little degrading to the present Chief of the Roman 
Catholic religion, that he signed, in 1802, the concordat 
for establishing religion in France, with this same man, 
who, by his intrigues in 1797, signed the death-warrant of 
religion in Italy, and of his own religious predecessor. 

During Napoleone's absence in Egypt, Joseph was again 
elected a member of the Council of Five Hundred ; but 
the cabals of the factious at this period, the danger of no- 
toriety, the defeat of his brother before St. Jean d'Acre, 
and his critical situation in Egypt, made him resign his 
place as a deputy, which he could no longer enjoy either 
with profit or safety. 

At his brother's unexpected return to France, after his 
desertion from the army of the East, Joseph left his retreat, 
and, with Napoleone and Talleyrand, plotted the revolution 
which was effected at St. Cloud, and seated a Buonaparte 
upon the throne of the Bourbons. He was soon after ap- 
pointed a counsellor of state in the section of the home de- 
partment, or interior. 

D 



26 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH, 

Frenchmen were now as insensible to losses as indiilerent 
about advantages ; disgusted with the war, they disregarded 
victories ; and their only wish, their only cry^ was Peace. 
Napoleone was the favourite of the people, not so much for 
his conquests, aS for his policy of always talking of peace> 
and of his endeavours to obtain it. He knew, therefore, 
that any person of his family negotiating and signing the 
termination of hostilities would endear themselves to the 
giddy French nation ; and, by procuring a general pacifica- 
tion, produce a temporary tranquillity, lessen the injustice, 
and palliate the tyranny of his usurpation, and g ve him 
time to organize his consular government. Jo&eph Buona- 
parte was therefore sent to negotiate with Austria at Lune- 
ville in the winter of 1800, where he signed the Definitive 
Treaty on the 9th of February 1801. On the 10th of Sep- 
tember following, he concluded, at Paris, ''a Convention 
with the Pope ; and at Amiens, on the 27th of March, 1802, 
he terminated the war with England. 

When a person is backed by 500,000 bayonets, assisted 
by well-drawn instructions, and accompanied by able secre- 
taries, it is neither difficult to negotiate, nor to dictate trea- 
ties, conventions, or concordats. The arguments of bayo- 
nets always carry conviction with them, shorten conferences 
force sacrifices, bring about conclusions, and bid defiance 
to the acknowledged laws of nations, balance of power, 
political justice, the prerogatives of sovereigns, and the 
rights and liberties of the people. Austria was Weakened 
and humiliated by the treaty of Luneville ; by the Conven- 
tion at Paris the Pope was insulted, and religion degraded ; 
and, at the same time, the politics, morals, and religions of 
the Continental Nations were reduced to the same level, and 
made to depend entirely upon the caprice, passions, or am- 
bition of the revolutionary and military despot in France. — 
Fortunately for the civilized world, — tiiat this was not exact- 
ly the case with the Treaty of Amiens, its short duration 
proves ; England, therefore may yet claim the respect of 
contemporaries, the gratitude and admiration of posterity, 
as the protector of the weak, the barrier to ambition, the 
check to selfishness; the example of virtuous moderation, 
and the guardian angel of the liberty and independence of 
mankind. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 27 

In the summer of 1802, Joseph Buonaparte was nominat- 
ed a senator, and a grand officer of the Legion of Honour ; 
and he has lately received the Senatorie of Brabant; or, 
which is the same thing, is made Napoleone's governor-ge- 
neral over Belgia, and his future residence is fixed at Brus- 
sels. He has often, particularly since the war broke out 
anew, been employed in missions in different departments, 
and, as his brother's pro-consul, presided at the Electoral 
Colleges, where, according to the consular constitution, 
candidates for the Senate, the Legislative Body, and the 
Tribunate, are elected. 

That Joseph formerly possessed the esteem and friendship 
of Napoleone, is evident by a letter from the latter. It was sent 
to him at a time when the General dreaded the consequences 
of his absurd and ambitious schemes, and therefore wished 
for retirement rather than publicity, to bury himself in ob- 
livion upon an estate in Burgundy, rather than to head ar- 
mies in Egypt and Syria. Since Napoleone has usurped 
the supreme power, Louis has superseded Joseph in the 
consular friendship, and is worthy to have done so when 
vice and wickedness are the principal recommendations to 
favour. 

Joseph is a good father and husband, a dutiful son and 
an affectionate brother, but an indifferent and dangerous 
citizen in a commonwealth. He is married to a woman of 
obscure birth and low manners, but an estimable and good 
character ; he loves his family and relatives, and nothing 
but his family and relatives. His native country, Corsica, 
he dislikes ; he hates France and Frenchmen, and would 
willingly sign the destruction of any kingdom, were it ne- 
cessary for his family elevation, ambition, or pretensions. 

According to the Livre Rouge by Bourrienne, Joseph 
has received for an establishment two millions of livres, and 
as presents for his negociations one million five hundred 
thousand livres ; he enjoys, besides, the salaries for his 
many high places, a yearly pension of one million two 
hundred thousand livres, and, as an annuity for four rela- 
tions of his wife, two hundred thousand livres. 



NAFOLEONE BUONAPARTE, 

EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. 

^iels traits me presentent vosfastes^ 

ImpitoyaUe conquer ansf 

JDes vftiix outreSy des projets vastes 

Des rois vaincus par des t} rans ; 

Des mitrs que lajlamme ravage 

Un vainqueur fumant de carnage^ 

Un peuple aiifffrs abandonne ; 

Des meres pales et sanglantes 

Arrachujit leursjilles tremblantes 

Des bras d^unsoldat effrene* J. B. ROUssEAU. 

A TRULY great man wants neither the often-envied 
merit of an ancestry, nor the doufetful hope of a brilliant pro- 
geny. He alone constitutes his whole race ; he makes a blot 
of what has been before him, and apprehends nothing of 
what is to succeed him. Without virtue there is no real 
greatness, as without religion there is no genuine virtue. — - 
Fortune, as frequently as talents, makes the warrior victo- 
rious and the conqueror successful ; but not the fame of bat- 
tles, or the renown of prosperity, any more than terror of 
power, can command the admiration of the good, the ap- 
probation of the humane, or the applause of the just and 
generous. 

Who were those praising and worshipping a Caesar, ex- 
tolling and adoring an Octavius Augustus ? Were they not 
the base slaves of an usurpation, and not the free citizens of 
a commonwealth, who would as willingly and as cordially 
have prostrated themselves before their rivals or opposer&, 
before a Sylla, a Pompey, a Brutus, 6r an Anthony? Who 
are those that lavish encomiums, preach obedience, and ex- 
hort submission to a Buonaparte ? Are they not the already 
degraded and dishonoured slaves of a Robespierre, a Marat, 
a Brissot, a Merlin, and a Barras ; who have been fighting 
their battles, submitting to their tyranny, and magnifying" 
their clemency, just as they now do that of the Corsican ? 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 29 

All usurpers have been despised by the virtuous, dreaded 
by the weak and timorous, obeyed by the vicio W8 and th^ 
cowardly, associated with by the tre^acherous, disaffected, and 
guilty ; and if all usurpers are " damned to everlastingfame," 
their base tools deserve everlasting contempt ; -because they 
are the accomplices of their crimes, the obscure instruments 
of their elevation, without an adequate profit or advantage 
to diminish their infamy, to extenuate their rebellion, or to 
palliate or excuse their seduction or desertion from the cause 
of honor .ind of loyalty. 

Of the accomplices or slaves of ancient usurpers, but lit- 
tle is known; oblivion has 'erased and concealed most of 
their names, although history has recorded their guilt ; but 
we know that Csesar descended from a noble family, and that 
Octavius was his nephew ; we are ignorant, however, who 
were their relatives, what places they filled, what authority 
they exerted, what riches they possessed, v*^hat influence 
they had, what good they effected, or what evil they pre- 
vented. 

By the short and imperfect sketches contained in this 
small volume, some of Buonaparte's revolutionary prede- 
cessors, and many of his criminal associates, are made 
known, as they deserve, without flattery and without false- 
hood J and the pedigree of his family has been traced, both 
as it has been represented by his friends and by his adver- 
saries. 

The plan of this work does not permit the author either 
to follow him through his campaigns in Italy, or to wander 
with him in Egypt ; to discuss the cause, means, and mari- 
ner of his usurpation ; to penetrate into the secret views of 
his ambition, or to speci^late upon his future intentions, as a 
First Consul in France, as a President in Italy, or as a Ty- 
rant over thirty millions of Frenchmen, six millions of Itali- 
ans, two millions of Helvetians, and three millions of Ba- 
tavians.* Others have already painted the hero, admired 
the victor, illustrated the conqueror and bowed to ihe usurp- 
er. Panegyric has been exhausted, comparison worn out, 
praise wasted, made common and nauseous. The annals, 
the monuments of the ancients, and the memoirs, the works, 

* We refer our readers to the history of the military life of 
Buonaparte^ published by Warner ^ Ilanna, of this city. 



Se REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

the history, and all the productions of the modems, and of 
modem ingenuity, have been ransacked to find words appli- 
cable to a man, who, for the honuor of humanity, had no 
equal in fofmer times, and only one person nearly resembling 
him in the present age, who, like himself, from a subject 
and citizen, became a rebel, and from a rebel a tyrant— 
The parallel between Maximilian Robespierre and Napole- 
one Buonaparte is more striking than many are aware of ; 
and their revolutionary and cruel characters bear surprising 
traits of likeness ; more, no doubt, than will be remembered 
or recorded in this sketch. — In 1793, France suffered, and 
Europe was disturbed by the revolutionary anarchy of Ro- 
bespierre ; in 1803, France is enslaved, and Europe disho- 
noured, by the revolutionar}^ tyranny of Buonaparte. 

Robespiefre and Buonaparte are both children of the same 
parent — the French Revolution : they are brother sans-cu' 
lottes ; brother jacobins; fellow-subjects of the sovereign 
people ; fellow-propagators of fraternity ; fellow-apostates of 
equality ; and fellow-destroyers of liberty in the name of li- 
berty itself. Fellow-rebels to their King, they have both 
usurped his throne ; and fellow- apostates of their religion, 
they have both used religion as an instrument to support their 
usurpation. 

Robespierre had but little revolution ar)^ experience ; Buo- 
naparte has had a perfect revolutionary education. That 
the same blood runs in the veins of both, the equally san- 
guinary measures employed to obtain power, and the equally 
Lloody deeds to preserve it, prove beyond contradiction ; but 
(the impolitic terror employed by the one, has strengthen- 
ed and confirmed the political oppression of the other. 

The murder and massacre of the Parisians in the prisons, 
September 1792, laid the foundation of the greatness of Ro- 
bespierre ; the murder and massacre of the Parisians in the 
streets, October 1795, laid the foundation of the greatness 
of Buonaparte. — Both were, however, previously known in 
the bloody annals of the Revolution; both had already given 
proofs of their revolutionary civism. Robespierre planned 
the massacre at Avignon in October 1791 ; and Buonaparte 
headed the massacre at Toulon in December, 1793. 

Robespierre had his Danton — Buonaparte his Barras. — 
The advice of Danton assisted Robespierre ; the protection 
of Barras advanced Buonaparte. Robespierre, to beconie 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. SI 

Dictator, espoused the interest of Danton ; Buonaparte to 
become a general, married the mistress of Barras. Robes- 
pierre sent Danton to the scaffold ; Buonaparte sent Barras 
into exile. The one murdered an accomplice ; the other 
disgraced a benefactor, whom he dared not murder. 

At the head of the Committee of Public Safety, Robes- 
pierre crowded the prisons with suspected Frenchmen j at 
the head of the army in Egypt, Buonaparte poisoned the 
wounded Frenchmen who crowded his hospitals. Robes- 
pierre guillotined en masse French aristocrats ; Buonaparte 
poisoned en masse French soldiers. Fear moved the axe of 
Robespierre's guillotine ; cru^elty distributed the poisonous 
draught of Buonaparte. Cowardice made Robespierre a 
murderer ; calculation made Buonaparte a poisoner, The 
one destroyed those whom he feared as enemies ; the other 
poisoned those friends who had served him as soldiers. — 
Robespierre gave no quarter to his enemies ; Buonaparte 
massacred, in cold blood, enemies to whom he had given 
quarter. 

Robespierre declared a war of extermination against La 
Vendee ; Buonaparte, by a perfidious peace, exterminated 
the Royalists of La Vendee. The one burned and plun- 
dered their property as enemies ; the other imprisoned, 
transported, and murdered their persons when friends. 

Robespierre, in his proclamations, threatened all Europe 
with a revolution; Buonaparte, by his negociations, has re- 
volutionized the whole Continent of Europe. Robespierre^ 
with his guillotine, proposed to establish an universal anar- 
chy; Buonaparte, with his bayonets, proposes to establish 
an universal slavery. 

Robespierre spoke of humanity, while sending hundreds 
every day to the scaffold ; Buonaparte talks of generosity, 
while sending to prison thousands of innocent travellers, pro- 
tected by all the laws of nations and of hospitality. 

Robespierre bravely ordered no quarter to be given to Bri- 
tish soldiers , Buonaparte nobly imprisons Britons who ar© 
no soldiers. 

Under Robespierre, thousands of Frenchmen were in 
fetters ; under Buonaparte, the whole French nation is en* 
slaved. 

Robespierre called all legal Princes tyrants ; Buonaparte 
wishes to tyrannize over all legal Princes. 



32 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Robespierre, in his speeches, abused and insulted all Mo- 
narchs ; Buonaparte, by his negociations, has degraded Mo- 
narchy itself. 

Robespierre proscribed commerce in France, by publish- 
ing a maximum ; Buonaparte expects to revive commerce, 
by establishing a maximum upon thrones. 

Robespierre, when a Dictator, to undermine thrones, con- 
tinued to use the manners and language of a citizen sans-cu- 
lotte ; Buonaparte, when a Consul, to crush thrones, speaks 
to kings as if they were sans-culottesy and emperors as if 
they were his fellow-citizens. 

Robespierre was a revolutionary fanatic ; Buonaparte is a 
revolutionary hypocrite. The one was blood-thirsty through 
fear and fanaticism ; the other is cruel by nature, from am- 
bition and self-interest. I he one boldly told all mankind, 
that he was its enemy ; the other acts as the enemy of all 
mankind, while pretending to be its friend. The one de- 
creed death to any one who should speak of peace ; the 
other meditates slavery, plots ruin, and prepares death by 
his pacifications. 

The" names of the victims who perished by Robespiercan 
cruelty were published in the daily papers ; the names of 
those victims of Buonapartes's cruelty who perish by the 
arms of his military commissions, by poison in his dunge- 
ons, by suffering during transportations, or by misery in the 
wilds of Cayenne, are only known to himself, to his accom- 
plices, and to his executioners.— Robespierre's victims were 
tried and condemned before they were executed ; the vic- 
tims of Buonaparte are condemned without a trial, and exe- 
cuted without condemnation. 

The revolutionary fanaticism of Robespierre, like the re- 
ligious one of Cromwell, sent his king to the scaffold ; the 
revolutionary hypocrisy and ambition of Buonaparte, like 
that of Cromwell, keeps his legal king from his hereditary 
throne. 

The friends of Robespierre pretend that he died a martyr 
to his cause, as a revolutionary enthusiast ; Buonaparte is a 
revolutionary sophist, who probably will perish the martyr of 
his own Machiavelism. 

Robespierre was a Fleming ; Buonaparte is a Corsican ; 
the one bom at Arras in Flanders, the other at Ajaccio in 
Corsica ; the one in the northern, the other in the soudiern 
part of the French empire — neither was a Frenchman. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 35 

Robespierre has only been seen during the existence of fo- 
reign wars, civil troubles, and domestic factions ; Buona- 
parte is firmly seated upon the throne of the Bourbons, all 
enemies are vanquished, all troubles are quieted, and all 
factions dissolved. What Robespierre would have done in 
his situation, it is impossible to say ; but we have all wit- 
nessed, and yet witness, the proscription of liberty, the sub- 
version of laws, the incertitude of property, and the organ- 
ized military despotism of Buonaparte. The First Consul 
of the French Republic, and the sovereign of forty millions 
of slaves, shews every day the low whims, the mean ca- 
prices, the degrading vices, and the unbecoming passions of 
a Corsican adventurer, and the little soul of a fortunate up- 
start. 

After this brief comparison. It may, however be said, 
without exaggeration, 

Le masque tombe^ Vht^mme reste, 
Et le her OS s'*evanoult* 

And indeed, when, without any colouring, amplification^ 
or aggravation, only some of the atrocities of the Corsican 
First Consul have been related, it is to be apprehended, that 
even the man will disappear, and a monster remaia j hav- 
ing nothing human but the shape, Vith the heart and fero- 
city of a tiger, and the cunning and treachery of the fox ; 
artful and mischievous as a monkey, and blood-thirsty as a 
wolf. 

Educated in a public military school at the expence of his 
virtuous sovereign, Napoleone Buonaparte received, at the 
age of seventeen, from the same Prince, a commission as 
lieutenant of artillery, and new duties were added to former 
obligations ; but no sooner sounded the trumpet of revolt, 
than he was one of the first to join its colours ; and he be- 
came a traitor and a rebel before he was a man. 

Among the many other loyal officers in the regiment which 
Buonaparte disgraced by his principles and conduct, was 
Lieut. Philipeaux, who was educated with him in the college 
at Autun, and afterwards at the military school at Brienne, 
and who had hitherto been his friend. Philipeaux was frank, 
)3rave, and liberal ; Buonaparte conceited, selfish, and mean^ 
these opposite characters could not, therefore, long remain 



34 REVOLUTIONARY PLU«TARCH. 

in unison, when experience and maturity, while they im 
proved the judgment of the one, served but to expose, in 
more pointed colours, the vicious propensities of the other. 

Both Philipeaux and Buonaparte had, from the absurd 
and dangerous system of education prevailing in France du- 
ring its monarchical form of government, imbibed at an 
early age an admiration of the Grecian and Roman repub- 
lics. Each had his chosen heroes of an|;iquity, whom he 
desired to imitate in his method, manners, and language. 
While Philipeaux rather inclined to the mild and amiable 
philosophy of a TuUy, the cruel and unfeeling stoicism of a 
Cato and of a Brutus was the admiration of Buonaparte. 

When the Revolution broke out, these two young men 
dixussed, according to their different notions, what they 
o\\ ed to their king, to their country, and to themselves. — 
Buonaparte, confounding stoicism with egotism, as he more 
than once already had done with cruelty, tried in vain to 
persuade his friend to regard the present political convul- 
sions of France as referring only to themselves, and the hape 
it held out to them of rapid advancement among the civil 
troubles of parties, and the struggles of factions. Phili-- 
peaux's loyalty remained unshaken by all the efforts of his 
friend's sophistry; and neither certainty of rank, nor pros- 
pect of riches, could move the heart of a person firm in his 
duty, both as a subject to his king, and as a Christian to his 
God. 

The revolutionary fanaticism of Buonaparte soon exceed- 
ed all bounds ; by associating with Championet, and other 
persons notorious in the cause of rebellion, he insulted the 
feelings of Philipeaux, who soon ceased to be any longer 
his friend. In 1790, by taking the decreed oaih of the na- 
tion, which annulled his former oath of allegiance to his 
prince, Buonaparte proved that he was unworthy the attach- 
ment of the friend of his youth ; and, in proportion as their 
mutual affection had been great, their reciprocal hatred be- 
came violent. At the mess of their regiment, Philipeaux 
publicly insulted him as a perjured traitor ; but, as this fa- 
shionable patriotism had been combined with a no less 
fashionable prudence, he declined (though so contrary 
to the nice principles of honour among the French military 
serving the King) either to demand an explanation, or to 
take satislaction as a gentleman or as an cfticer. He was, 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 35 

in consequence, excluded from the mess ; and, in revenge, 
he excited the jacobins to attack the whole corps of officers 
with their usual calumnies, abusing them as aristocrats, and 
threatening them with the lamp-post, or, as it was then call- 
ed, the lantern of the sovereign people. To spare their 
countrymen from fresh crimes, most of the officers, and 
among others Philipeaux, emigrated. 

Imprudence, or the want of discrimination, often mis- 
leads young and warm minds, who feel as a want, the plea- 
sure to be derived from communicating with and confiding 
in a friend; but who cease to feel so forcibly that sym- 
pathy when age has matured their reason. Tiiis base and 
cowardly behaviour of Buonaparte, therefore, convinced 
Philipeaux that he had hitherto fostered a serpent in his bo- 
som, and made him remember many particulars of their ear- 
liest youth, which caused him to be ashamed of having so 
long been the dupe of a man, whose ferocious and atrocious 
sentiments he had often witnessed ; but which, instead of 
ascribing to a deeply vicious heart, he conceived to originate 
from a head turned by wrong ideas of stoicism. 

He recollected, that at the age of twelve, in the College 
of Autun, buonaparte had a favourite dog which had be- 
longed to his deceased father, who was particularly fond of 
him, and on his death-bed had bequeathed him to Napole- 
one to be taken care of. For fifteen montns this dog had 
been his constant and faithful attendant ; when one night, 
by stealing a part of his master's supper, he offended him so 
much, that after a cruel beating, Buonaparte swore the dog 
should never live another supper-time ; the next day he put 
his threat into execution, by nailing the poor animal alive 
against the wall, and cutting him up deliberately, that he 
might be the longer tormented ! ! ! 

At the age of fifteen, in the military school at Brienne, 
Buonaparte had an intrigue with the daughter of a washer- 
vroman, who found herself in a state of pregnancy. He 
consulted Philipeaux how to extricate himself from this dis- 
agreeable affair ; and was advised by him to give her some 
money to carry her to the lying-in-hospital at Lyons, and 
Philipeaux offered his purse to assist him. The money was 
accepted ; but within twenty^-four hours the unfortunate girl 
perished with her child, victims to the early cruelty of this 
Vdoung monster, who had brought her some pills, as he said, 



i 

I 



I 



{16 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

to produce an abortion or a miscarriage; but which, in fact, 
were composed of, or mixed with verdigris and arsenic. — - 
The protection of M. de Marboeuf, however, the interest 
and reputation of the school, and a sum of money given by 
his protector to tjie girl's mother, saved him from a well- 
deserved punishment. 

On the day that his poisoned mistress had been buried, he 
began to court her younger sister, and thus augmented his 
former unrepented guilt by base insensibility. Friendship, 
often as blind as love, ascribed to imitated stoicism, what 
was the mere effect of rooted wickedness. 

His greatest amusement, when a boy, was to frequent the 
public hospitals when any dreadful or disgusting operations 
were to be performed, and to regard the pains and agonies 
of the sufferer, and of the dying. With what little money 
he had, he paid the attendants in these abodes of misery, to 
be informed when any scene of horror, conformable to his 
feelings, was expected to take place ; and he diverted him- 
self often with his comrades, in mimicking the convulsive 
struggles of suffering or expiring humanity. He piqued 
himself on having seen, before he was fifteen, 544 opera- 
tions, or amputations, and the agonies or deaths of 160 
persons. 

After the emigration of most of the officers, Buonaparte 
was promoted td the rank of captain. In the course of the 
revolution he was often employed in differetit expeditions ; 
but his situation was obscure, his exertions unnoticed, and 
his character suspected, on account of his known connec- 
tions with intriguers of all parties, either aristocrats or ja- 
cobins, either Frenchmen or Corsicans. After resigning 
Jiis company in the regiment of artillery de la Fere, he ob- 
tained a battalion of National Guards in Corsica, where, 
being suspected of plotting the surrender of that island 
to the English, Lecourbe, St. Michael, and two other de- 
puties of the National Convention, ordered hun to be ar- 
rested. This circumstance obliged him to leave the 
army ; and he was residing, in indigence, eight leagues from 
Toulon, when, in 1793, that city was in the possession of 
the English ; Salicetti, one of the deputies on mission with 
the republican army, having some acquaintance with Buona- 
J)arte, recommended him to his colleague Barras, and he 
was employed during the siege witih the yank of a clicf de 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ar 

brigade. The cruelties which followed the surrender ol 
Toulon he commenced or committed. By a deceitful pro- 
clamation, all the inhabitants who had employment under 
the English during their occupation of Toulon, who had 
served or lodged any Englishman, or who had been slispected 
to have favoured their entry and the capitulation of that city, 
either directly or indirectly, were ordered, under pain of 
death, to meet in the grand square, called Le Champ de 
Mars, on a fixed day and hour. Upwards of fifteen hundred 
men, women, and children, assembled there in consequence 
of this proclamation ; Buonaparte then desired all those 
who wished to escape punishment and death to cry out — 
Vive la Republique ! With one voice these unfortnate per- 
sons called out, the Republic forever ! 1 his was the signal 
for their destruction. Cannons loaded with grape shot kill- 
ed some and wounded and maimed others, who were dis- 
patched with swords and bayonets. The official report of 
this ferocious performance is coptaihed in the following let- 
ter from Buonaparte, addressed to Citizen Barras, Freron, 
and Robespierre the younger, representatives of the people^ 
dated Toulon, the 29th Frimaire, Year 2, (December 24th, 
1793.) 

*^ CITIZEN REPRESENTATIVES, 

" Upon the field of glory, my feet inundated v/ith the 
blood of traitors, I announce to you, with a heart beating 
with joy, that your orders are executed, and France re» 
venged ; neither sex nor age have been spared ; those who 
escaped, or were only mutilated by the discharge of our re- 
publican cannon, were dispatched by the swords of liberty 
and the bayonets of equality. 

*•• Health and admiration, 

'' Brutus Buonaparte, 

'' Citizen sans-culottes." 

It was the fashion in 17'92 and 1793, among the exclusive 
patriots, as they were called, to assume Roman and Grecian 
names ; intending thereby to exclude from modern republi- 
canism, and to regard as suspected, or to proscribe every 
citizen, who, as Dubois Creance, one of them proposed^ 
at the club of the jacobins, could not prove, that, in case 
of a return of order and religion, ^ gibbet was merited 



{ 



58 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

by and would reward his patriotism. — This was the first 
time, but not the last, that Napoleone Buonaparte chang- 
ed his Christian name. In 1796 he was again Napoleone 
Buonaparte; hut in 1798 he became Ali Buonaparte; and 
in 180(^ tout courts Buonaparte. 

After the dt ath of Robespierre, the horrors that he had 
excited at Toulon caused him to be arrested as a terrorist, 
and sent prisoner to Nice. As, however, it was imposbible 
to prosecute all the subordinate agents in those disgraceful 
scenes, he was, with many of his accomplices, released by 
the amnesty of the National Convention ; but, on his return 
to Paris, failing in his efforts to procure employ, he was re- 
duced to extreme distress and penury. In this desperate 
situation, he was again recommended to the notice of Bar- 
ras, drawn forth from his place of concealment, and invest-* 
ed with the command of the artillery to be employed in 
murdering and subjugating the people of Paris. 

The regicide National Convention (which had overthrown 
the monarchy and the church, murdered its king, disturbed 
all Europe, and made all Frenchmen wretched), when 
forced to resign its usurped power, wishing partly to conti- 
nue it, decreed the re-election of two thirds of its guilty 
members. This was opposed by all respectable and ioval 
citizens ; among others, by the sections, and by the inha- 
bitants of Paris, who prepared, with arms in their hands, 
to defend their violated rights. 

Pichegru, Moreau, and other known and distinguished 
generals, were applied to ; but refused to command the con- 
ventional troops destined to perpetuate rebellion by exttrmi- 
nating its opposers. Buonaparte and other millitary crimi- 
nals, were then resorted to, and dragged forward from their 
hiding-places ; and thus, by perpetrating new crimes, they 
exchanged their well-deserved obscurity for a dreadful 
notoriety. 

On the night of the 4th of October, 1795, preceding 
that which was to decide the fate of the National Conven- 
tion and the new constitution, the two parties drew out their 
forces under circumstances widely different. The soldiers 
of the Convention were well armed, long disciplined, am- 
ply supplied with ammunition, and drilled into unanimity : 
the insurgent Parisian sections were deprived of the greater 
part of their ai'ms, in consequence of the late insurrections ; 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. n 

they had no artillery, and but a small supply of ammunition 
for their muskets ; they had never seen any military service ; 
and so far were they from being unanimous in any polical 
sentiment, save that which occasioned their momen^ry com- 
bination, that it was judged expedient to avoid ever^^iscus- 
sion, and every allusion to general affairs, and to limit their 
demands, and their rallying word, to the single proposition 
of a free election, and no compulsory return of the two-thirds 
from the members of the Convention. 1 he individuals who 
appeared in this insurrection were not, as on former occasi- 
ons, the refuse of villany and infamy, the dregs of the su- 
burbs, and the sweepings of tHe gaols ; but their decent ap- 
pearance, and the neatness in their dress, exposed them to 
the ridici'le of their adversaries, who contemptuously inquir- 
ed whether a successful insurrection had ever been conduct- 
ed by gentlemen with powdered heads and silk stockings ? 

General Danican, the commander of the troops of the Pa- 
risian sections, feeling the insufficiency of his force for a ma- 
nual contest, was anxious to avoid hostilities, and spent great 
part of the night in haranguing the troops of the Convention, 
under Barras and Buonaparte, and attempting to persuade 
them, that, as fellow-citizens, the cause of the people was 
their own. He found great difficulty in making himself 
heard, amid the persevering cry of Five la Conventwn ! which 
the battalions on duty \vere instructed to vociferate. Many 
hot-headed men oi his own party were eager to engage ; and 
Buonaparte, and the other satellites of the Convention, con- 
fiding in their superior numbers, were desirous of hostilities, 
as the sure means ol establishing their own power, and re- 
pressing all future exertions to counteract their imwarrant- 
able assumption of authority. Danican did not, however, 
neglect other precauiions suitable to his situation ; and, by 
his eflorts in the coure oi the night, his adherents were placed 
in a more respectable position than their numbers or their 
force had appealed to promise. Several of the sections, 
summoned by missionaries from the Convention to lay 
down their arms, had returned a resolute refusal j and the 
dread least the soldiery should be persuaded to decline fir- 
ing on the people, rendered the strongest party uneasy, tho' 
they persevered in their original determination to try the ut- 
most extremes oi blood, fire and famine, rather than recede. 



I 



'■tl^ 



I 



ioi REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

The troops of the Convention were reinforced during the 
next night, by twenty thousand rhen from the country- ; the 
generals who were suspected of an inclination to avoid the ef- 
fusion ^J^lood, were exchanged for others incapable of re- 
morse W shame ; the troops were intrenched, and the bes^ 
positions secured. The Primary AssemHies were convened 
in the section of Le Pelletier ; but the sanguine confidence ot 
some, and the treacherous insinuations of others, bore down 
the prudent counsels of General Danican ; and it was resolv- 
ed to attack the troops of the Convention in their stronghold, 
not from the expectation of advantage in a regular conflict, 
but from a blind hope and foolish confidence that the military 
would not fire on the people. 

The line of defence occupied by the Convention extended 
from the Pont-neuf along the quays on the right bank of the 
Seine, to the Champs Elysies^ and was continued to the Bou- 
levards. The people were masters of the Rue St. Honore, 
the Place de Vendome^ St, Roch^ and the Place du Palais Roy- 
al ; but they were without order, or a common point of acti- 
on ; and the nature of the insurrection had rendered it im- 
possible to establish any. The Convention, pursuing the sys- 
tem which they had so often before tried with success, wasted 
a great portion of the day in sending deputies to harrangue 
the sections, and in receiving and discussing propositions of 
peace ; but during the whole time thus gained, they were 
employed in reinforcing their positions, adding to their sup- 
plies, and raising the spirits of their troops. They knew 
that the insurrection must grow languid towards the evenings 
especially as those engaged in it had been exposed during the 
whole day, and part of the preceding night, to a storm, with 
a torrent of rain. Their scheme was attended with as com- 
plete success as they could wish for. Fervent debates in the 
Convention, messages, and an equivocating letter from the 
committets to Danican, kept the people employed in discus- 
sion instead of action daring the day ; but as evening ap- 
proached, when the general of the insurgents was preparing 
to withdraw his troops in separate portions, ea'ch of its own 
arrondissement, the forces of the Convention changed iheir 
posi.ion ; the post of the citizens 2XSt. Roch was fired upon 
irom a house in the Culde Sac Dauphin, and the scene of car- 
nage was begun. 1 he cilkens made at first some resistance, 
but the artillery, commanded by the cruel Buonaparte, swept 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 41 

the streets in every direction, killed or wounded evety per- 
son walking in them ; and the insurgents, neither sufficiently 
numerous nor desperate enough to rush forward and seize 
the cannon, retreated in every direction, conceajpg them- 
selves in houses and under gateways, and finally in the church 
of St. Roch ; while great numbers fled from the spot, crying 
treason, and spreading alarm and despair in every direction. 
All the bnrricades erected to oppose the progress of the 
troops of the Convention, were beaten down by Buonaparte's 
cannon, and men, v/omen, and children, killed without mer- 
cy. Every expedient for r^esistance failed ; and the insur- 
gents being dispersed, and Danican himself obliged to en- 
sure his safety by concealment, the regicide Convention re- 
mained victorious ; and during the whole night repeated dis- 
charges of cannon announced their triumph, and prevented 
any new rallying of their opponents. 

Eight thousand mutilated carcasses, of both sexes and of 
dW ages, were the horrible trophies presented to the French 
nation by Buonaparte's first victory as a general ; but as he 
never before had filled any superior command, it is necessary 
to exhibit his principles and patriotism in their true colours, 
by showing, from impartial and loyal authors, of what sort of 
n en a Convention was composed, for whom Buonaparte had 
been fighting, or rather butchering. 

The general character, however, of this body, at once 
contemptible and formidable, atrociously wicked, and ab- 
jectly mean, cannot be given complete, without a distinct 
revision of its acts, which, in government, religion, finance, 
jurisprudence, and warfare, exhibit but one principle — a re- 
solute pursuit of a given object, with a total disregard of 
the opinions of mankind, and a contempt of all established 
or avowed principles of morality or good faith. But perverse 
and ignorant men, suddenly possessed of all the wealth, 
strength, and resources of an ingenious, rich, and powerful 
nation, could not, without a peculiar mixture of ferocity and 
wickedness, have committed the acts which stigmatized the 
Convention ; nor could the mighty energies which they 
aroused and guided have been directed to so few purposes 
of real national good, but for the folly which ganerally ac- 
companies extreme vice and depravity, and renders the 
triumphs of villany bitter, even in the most ardent moment 
of enjoyment. 

F 



I 



v>? 



42 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH- 

The general abstracts of the acts of the Convention, «na 
the effects of its existence, is thus detailed by Prudhomme, 
who, from an outrageous jacobin, becanae a repentant citi- 
2en, anft, to prove his sincerity, recorded the atrocities of 
his former accomplices. The sittings of the French Na- 
tional Convention continued thirty-seven months and foui*' 
days; during which time, 11,210 laws were enacted ; 360 
conspiracies and 140 insurrections denounced; and 18,613 
persons put to death by the guillotine. The civil war at 
Lyons cost 31,200 men ; that at Marseilles, 729; At Tou- 
lon, 14,325 were destroyed; and in the reactions in the 
South, after the fall of Robespierre, 750 individuals perish- 
ed, i'he war in La Vendee is computed to have caused 
the destruction of 900,000 men, and more than 20,000 
dwellings. Impressed with images of terror, 4790 persons 
committed suicide, and 3400 women died in consequence 
of premature deliveries ; 20,000 are computed to have died 
of famine, and 1550 were driven to insanity. In the colo- 
nies, 124,000 white men, women, and children, and 60,000 
people of colour, were massacred ; two towns, and 3203 
habitations, were burnt. The loss of men in the war is es- 
timated, though certainly below the real truth , at 800,000 ; 
while 123,789, who had emigrated in the course of the Rs^ 
volution, were, by the Convention, for ever excluded from 
their country. 

Enchanted with Buonaparte's humanity and bravery in 
the streets of Paris, his protector Barras first made him 
second in command in the army of the Interior, and in a 
short time afterwards commander in chief over the same 
army. During the winter of 1795, to qualify himself for 
his new appointment, and to retain an interest with the Di- 
rector Barras, Buonaparte wedded the widow ef Alexander 
Beauhamois, who had, since the murder of her husband, 
in the time of Robespierre, exchanged with Barras complai- 
sance for protection, and who brought her new husband, as 
a portion, the command over the army in Italy. 

The military talents of Buonaparte were not unknown to, 
or undervalued by, the Allies ; but their armies in Italy 
were not put on a footing sufficiently respectable to encounter 
those of the Republic ; they were vastly inferior in number, 
and of different nations!^ Austrians, Italians, Sardinians, 
Neapolitans, Swiss, and Tuscans, all divided among thena- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 44 

selves by national jealousies instigated or kept up by French 
emissaries. Buonaparte's troops were both numerous and 
united, and mostly composed of veterans and warriors in- 
structed in the school of Pichegru, and by him accustomed 
to order, bravery, discipline, and victor}/'. 

The Duke of Modena paid millions to Buonaparte for the 
neutrality of his dominions, and to obtain the guarantee of 
the French republic for their integrity. But the French 
General, after pocketing tlie money^ continued to treat 
Modena, as a conquered country ; and by his advice, with- 
in six months after this treaty of peace, neutrality, and 
guarantee, the French Govertunent incorporated this dutchy 
with the Cisalpine Republic, and the Duke of Modena died 
an exile in Germany. JVithout being at xvar, the Pope was 
forced to conclude a peace with Buonaparte, and to give up 
some of*his most valuable provinces to augment the depart- 
ments of the Corslcan's newly-formed republic ; and, two 
yjears afterwards, the Pope died a prisoner in France, after 
having seen the wretchedness of his subjects, and the ruin 
of his country with that of his government. The King of 
Naples made numerous pecuniary ar>.d other sacrifices to 
obtain peace and neutrality ; but French intrigues and con- 
spirators were more dangerous than French soldiers. When 
France was no longer an enemy, its emissaries perverted 
the loyalty of his subjects ; and fourteen months of French 
friendship obliged his Sicilian Majesty (to avoid the destiny 
pf the Pope) to fly from his capital, and be indebted to an 
English fleet for his safety, for his throne, and for his life. 

In such a manner did Buonaoarte act, and such were some 
of the consequences of his victories over, and his negotia- 
tions with, most of tlie powers in Italy, whom French am* 
bition treated as enemies, French cupidity received as friends, 
and French treachery weakened, ruined, or annihilated.—- 
When a man is destitute of every sentiment of common 
justice, generosity, and liberality ; has no political faith or 
honour, and no religious principles ; he must be as unfeel- 
ing ; barbarous, and tyrannical over his countrymen, and 
and those immediately under his command and disposal, 
as he has been biise and cruel with foreigners and strangers. 

In the opinions of the inconsistent and degenerated 
French republicans, as well as in those of some people 
jn other countries, the conqueror* of Italy had erased the 



■^- 



44 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

crimes of the murderer at Toulon and at Paris : but that a 
vicious nature does not change with fortune, nor a depraved 
character with public opinion, the following letter, written 
in 1 797 by a French general, and transmitted to this coun- 
try by an ambassador of one of the powers allied to the 
French Republic, will prove. Its original will be found in 
No. 101 of •''• Paris pendant VAnnee 1797." Its republican 
tion at present adds new conviction to what has already been 
affirmed; it identifies the Hero oi 1797 with the Consul of 
1803 ; and ser\^es to establish more firmly the truth of those 
atrocities of which the Corsican has been publicly accused, 
both before and since the time at which it was written. 

'•' Escaped at last from the long and cruel fatigues of the 
most mu' derous of wars, I am just arrived from the army 
of Italy, after being lamed for life at the battle of Areola.— 
I have paid the debt of gratitude which I owed to my coun- 
try ; I have given her proofs of my zeal and of my love, 
and have sealed them with my blood. Become an invalid 
irl the bloom of youth, and no longer able to fight in her ser- 
vice, I am entitled to her protection. In her bosom have I 
sought an asylum ; and no longer able to serve her with an 
arm paralysed by the steel of the enemy, I nevertheless 
devote to her a heart which adores her, and a holy boldness 
in denouncing to her (I will not say abuses, that would be 
too cold an expression, but) deeds of atrocity, at which 
Nero himself would have blushed, and which Suetonius 
would not have dared to impute to that monster. 

'• Believe me, I do not dispute the great military talents 
of Buonaparte ; his successes speak lor themselves. But 
what I contend for is, that Buonaparte is the most dangerous 
of all the French citizens ; that Buonaparte is a citizen in 
the manner of Caesar ; that it is in the manner of Caesar that 
he loves equality ; and that it is with all the contempt which 
Caes ir entertained for the senate of Rome, that Buonaparte 
speaks of the government of France. For the truth of my 
assertion, I appeal to all who are in the habit of being con- 
stantly about his person. He is Gustavus in the midst of 
battle : bat, like Gustavus, he pants for a throne and a crown, 
not to set it upon the head of this or that prince, but to 
place it upon his own. 

*' The most violent satraps of the great king had less 
power, and certainly less insolenpe and less vanity, than 



*,. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 45 

Buonaparte has given proofs of during his campaigns in 
Italy. 

*' Thesp are facts of the greatest notoriety. I only relate 
what all have seen, what every general has heard, and what 
all are ready to depose whenever they are called on by the 
Directory, with the exception of a wretch of the name of 
Le Clerc (the slave of Hobespierre), of Rusca^ a drinker of 
blood and a shameless robber, and of a few brigands of the 
same stamp. 

" Ardently do I hope that some one more skilful than 
myself will furnish the public with a detail of the atrocities 
committed by Buonaparte : tl)ey exceed all possible belief ! 
I call upon every true Frenchman, now at the head of our 
armies in Italy, to save their country and their fellow-citi- 
zens, and to declare to the Directory what they know of 
the facts which I am about to denounce. I call too upon 
the Directory, to interrogate the best generals in the army. 
Guarantee them but from xho, poniard oi Buonaparte; then 
yrill they speak out, and this is what they will depose : 

" Buonaparte, besides the contributions which he levies, 
exacts also enormous sums for himself, and appropriates to 
his own use as much of the spoliation of the countries that 
he has devastated as suits his convenience ; this money is 
lodged in the hands of several bankers at Genoa, Leghorn, 
and Venice. Very considerable sums also have been sent 
into Corsica. 

'' Buonaparte is at once the vainest and the most impu- 
dent of mortals. But he unites the vanity of a child with 
the atrocity of a demon. 

" I say — (and it is what twenty thousand men know 
without daring to say it, but what all will say, now that, 
like another Curtius, I throw myself into the gulf, for the 
safety of my brethren in arms) — I say, that in no age, and 
under no tyrant, have crimes more enormous been commit-, 
ted, than those which are daily perpetrated under the direc- 
tion and authority of Buonaparte ! 

'^ Will it be credited, that in the hospitals appropriated 
to the sick and wounded, the surgeons devoted to liuona- 
parte have a constant order ^ as soon as they see a sick soldier 
past recovery, or one whose incurable wounds will render 
him no longer of use to the service, to set a mark upon his 
bed } which fatal mark announces to the attendants that this 



46 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCIL 

victim is to Be carried away xvith the dead ! He is accord- 
ingly thrown into a waggon appointed to remove the dead 
bodies to the grave, and is generally strangled or smothered I 
But notwithstanding these precautions, as the carriages, 
move along to the place of interment, the cries and groans 
of the unfortunate men about to be buried alive may be dis- 
tinctly heard on all sides ! To this horrible fact I have my- 
self been an eye-witness, as well as to what I am going to 
relate. -^ 

'' In the month of July -1797, after an action which took 
place near Salo, on the Lac de Guarda, Jbuonaparte gave 
orders that, not only the dead^ but the dying and zuourtded, 
should be buried! The wretched victims were placed upon 
five waggons, and at midnight were dragged to an enormous 
ditch, and precipitated therein. The cries of the living be- 
ing distinctly heard, the monsters threw down eight loads 
of burning lime upon them, which, falling upon the undress- 
ed wounds of the poor victims, caused them to scud forth 
such piercing moans, that the virtuous curate of Salo, sciz-* 
ed with horror at the transaction, died in consequence of 
the affright ! 

*' Such are the atrocities to which I have been an eye- 
witness, and which I denounce to all men and to all ages ! 
If the Directory wish to be satisfied as to the truth of my 
assertions, they have it in their power to be so. I do not 
sign my name to this letter, as I am not desirous of being 
assassinated before the examination of the crimes that I have 
denounced can take place. I call upon the Directory to ve- 
rify the facts; and, that done, I will immediately present 
myself before them as a witness. In the mean time, I shall 
make myself known to Rewbell.^' 

This letter speaks for itself; and if Rewbell did not de- 
nounce or punish Buonaparte at that time, it was because he 
had shared with him some of his plunder of Italy ; and that 
vhe Corsican was, besides, necessary to the revolution which 
Rewbell, Barras, and La Reveilliere prepared, and which 
actually took place on the 4th of September, 1797. 

Nearly at the same period when Buonaparte committed, 
or ordered to be committed, these enormities, he dispatch- 
ed a letter to the Arch-duke Charles, with proposals for a 
termination of hostilities couched in terms of the most im- 
pudent hypocrisy as to his own sentiments, and insult as to 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 47 

the Gonduct of Great Britain. ** As for me. General (said 
Buonaparte), if the overture xvhich I have the honour to 
make to you can save the life of a single man^ I shall pride 
r>iyself more upon the civic crown which my, gonscience will 
tell me I shall thus have deserved^ than upon the melancholy 
glory which arises from milifary success.^^ What a heart 
must that man have, who coldly speculates upon sufferings 
and destruction, by commanding, with a cruel indifierence, 
the burial alive of his wounded soldiers ! What barefaced 
impudence must he possess, and hov/ great must his con- 
tempt have been, both for the prince to whom he wrote, and 
for mankind in general, to dare to tulk of a conscience, and 
to make use of expressions of tenderness and humanity, 
whilst acting as the most profoundly perverted and atrocious 
of all tyrants, either ancient or modern? But such has 
been the hypocritical and deceitful jargon of all revolutiona- 
ry heroes. Demons in their minds, sentiments, and beha-» 
viour, they were angels in their words. Robespierre spoke 
of liberty and virtue, v/hile two hundred and fifty thousand 
families crowded his prisons, and hundreds daily ascended 
bis scaffolds ; just as Buonaparte writes of a conscience^ 
when all his actions bid dtfiance to a divinity as well as to 
humanity. 

Before the atrocious and sanguinary tragedy of the reduc- 
tion of Switzerland was accomplished, treachery and ambi- 
tion had carried Buonaparte into Egypt, and with him the 
wretchedness of French fraternity and the horrors of un- 
provoked aggression. While the uninformed in France, as 
well as other countries, were amused by pretences of a pow- 
erful preparation for the invasion of England, and Buona- 
parte went even so far as to swindle monied men out of a 
loan upon the credit of the plunder of this country ; thoso 
who examined more considerately the place and manner of 
equipping the armament, were satisfied that its destinatioi^ 
was for some other coast, and public expectation had already 
pointed out that of Egypt. It was so secret, that, during 
the monarchy, many projectors, who hoped to recommend 
themselves by suggesting extensive enterprises, had lodged, 
as far back as in the time of Louis XIV. in the offices of 
different ministers^ projects for the subjugation of Egypt ; 
but the old government, having always some regard to ap- 
pearancc-s, and some (ionsideration for the livd® gf the peo- 



48 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH* 

pie, had not ventured to patronize an undertaking, which 
could not be atchieved without the infamy of assailing the 
dominions of an ancient and unprovoking ally, and the pro- 
bable sacrifice of a great portion of the army in conquering 
a tract of land situated in an untried climatie, where priva- 
tions and diseases of every kind v^ould thin their ranks, and 
make them execrate the fatal ambition of their rulers. Re- 
cent travellers from France had described Eg) pt in terms 
widely different from those in which the experience of earlier 
and more honest ages had depicted it ; and the hopes of 
possessing a land replete with means of colonization and 
commerce, combined with that of destroying the power of 
Great Britain in India, were supposed sufficient motives 
with republican France for the violation of all treaties and 
the oblivion of all rights. 

Buonaparte was entrusted with the command of this ex- 
pedition ; and in assuming this station, his personal ambi- 
tion to tread the ground which had been impressed by the 
victorious footsteps of Alexander and Csesar was subser- 
vient to the views of the Directory, who hated, feared, and, 
according to Carnot, were anxious to destroy him. Proba- 
bly boih the rulers and the general were acting with refined 
artifice and duplicity ; they hoped to deprive him of the 
advantages resulting from the command of an army which 
he had led to glory ^ by involving that army in a tedious and 
imcertain expedition ; while he, relying on his renown and 
popularity, and desirous to avoid interfering personally in 
the transactions of the congress at Rastadt, which then 
engaged the attention of all Europe, accepted the com- 
mand of the expedition, though intended, as his intercep- 
ted letters prove, to accomplish the first part of its des- 
tination only, and to return to France in the autumn. 

Whatever sagacity might be exerted in conjectures res- 
pecting the destination of the French fleet, which, includ- 
ing transports, amounted to upwards of four hundred sail, 
nothing certain could be learnt : the troops sent for embar* 
kation were called the right wing of the army of England ; 
but the squadron being assembled in the port of Toulon, 
and the collection of Savans^ of printing presses, and vari- 
ous other implements of science, demonstrated that its des- 
tination was for some other country. At length, on the 
4th of May, 1798, Buonaparte repaired to Toulon for the 



THE BUOiSTAPARTE FAMILY* 49 

purpose of commanding this far*-famed and mj^sterioiis ex- 
pedition ; and, as a preparatory measure, published a kind 
of military harangue, in form of a proclamation, reminding 
his soldiers of their numerous victories on mountains, in 
plains, and before fortified places, and that nothing now re- 
mained for them to achieve but maritime conquests ; they 
would now, he said, even exceed their former exertionsyor 
the prosperity of their country^ the good of viankind^ and 
their own glory. 

On the 19th following, tlie fleet sailed, and soon arrived 
off Malta, which the intrigues of France had prepared to 
surrender. On the nineteenth of June, Buonaparte com- 
menced a farce of provoking hostilities, by demanding per- 
mission to water his squadron : an indirect refusal being 
conveyed, the military were disembarked, and, after two 
days of pretended resistance, a capitulation was signed, 
yielding the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Cumino to France. 
Some ridiculous stipulations were made for obtaining indem- 
nities for the Grand Master at the Congress of Rastadt, 
and for assigning to each of the knights a paltry pension of 
seven hundred livres (291. sterl.). Buonaparte, as usual, 
accommodated the new acquisition with a constitution on 
the French model ; and, having plundered the islslnd, again 
proceeded towards his final destination. Before he set sail^ 
however, he put into requisition all Maltese sailors, and 
one hundred and ten young Maltese knights, all sons or re- 
latives of emigrated French noblemen who were in the army 
of Conde, or rn the Austrian or English service. They 
were distributed among the republican crews of different 
ships J and^ in the action at Aboukir, many of them were 
killed or wounded in fighting with men and for a cause 
which they idike detested. Twenty -two of these unfortu- 
nate young men were blown up in the L'Onent, one of 
whom was a Chevalier de St. Leger, from La Vendee, 
whose fathet- had been killed in the army of Coude, whose 
brother was butchered at Quiberon, and whose uncle had 
been shot as a Chouan. 

On the 1st of July, Buonaparte with all his force appear- 
ed before Alexandria, being only two days after Lord Nel- 
son had quitted that station. Apprehensive that Fortune 
might, yet desert him, and the English fleet return to frus- 
trate his operations, Buona^^arte hastily effected 4 laiidin^ 



50 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

of about four thousand three hundred men at Marabou — ^ 
Although this place was only two leagues from Alexandria, 
the French found no opposition from the natives ; not even 
a piece of artillery was pl^^nted for protection. Having sub- 
sequently augmented the number landed to upwards of twen- 
ty-five thousand, they advanced in platoons against the city, 
and reached it unopposed, except by a few Mamelukes, who, 
hovering around, cut off stragglers, and fought a few slight 
and partial skirmishes. 

He began, before anv attack was made on Alexandria, 
by circulatii.g a printed address to his army ; in which, after 
observing that the Romans protected all religions, he re- 
q ested, the soldiery to treat the '* Muftis and Imans of 
Africa with the same res^^ec? that they had exhibi>.ed toward 
the bishops and rabbins of Europe.'' He also transmitted 
three proclamations, prepared beforehand, and dated on 
board the flag-ship ; the first to the Pacha of Eg\-pt, stating, 
*' that he was come to put an end to the exactions of the Mame- 
lukesi*^ and inviting his highness, in the oriental style, *' to 
meet and curse along with him the impious race of Beys." — 
1 he second was addressed to the chief of the caravan j and 
the last to the inhabitants ; in this he had the impudence to 
assert, *'• that he was come to rescue the rights of the pooi" 
from the hands of their tyrants ; and added, with his usual 
hypocritical cant, " that the French respect^ more than the 
Mamelukes, God, his Prophet, and the Koran." 

" Cadis, Shieks, Imans, Chirbadgees !" continued he, 
" tell the people that we are the friend of true Mussulmen, — 
Did we not dethrone the Pope^ who preached that it was ne- 
cessary to make war against the true believers ? Did we not 
destroy the knights of Malta, because those foolish 7nen tho't 
that God wished hostilities to be perpetually carried on 
against those of your faith ?" After stating, " that all towns 
and villages which might arm against the French should be 
burnt^^ he commanded every one to remain in his house, 
enjoined prayers to be said as usual, and concluded with 
'^ Glory to the Sultan^ g'^^V ^^ ^^^^ French army^ his friends, 
curses to the Mamelukes, and happineas to the people of 
Egypt." It is hardily possible to point out any page of an- 
cient or modern histor)'^, where impudence is more united 
with falsehood, deception and imposture with atheism and 
political treachery. Buonaparte, accompanied by his staff, 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 51 

iieaded the advanced guard marching against Alexandria, a 
<lefenceless city, the property and possession of one of the most 
ancient alies of France. Gen. Bon commanded the cohimn 
on the right ; that in the centre was led by Gen. Kleber ; while 
the left, under Gen. Menou, proceed along the sea coast. 
Alexandria was garrisoned by about five hundred unskilful 
Janissaries ; and the remaining inhabitant in the forts, and 
on the tops of houses, waited the attack. It has been as- 
serted, but without any proof that Alexandria was sum- 
moned ; but the people answered only by the shouts of the 
garrisf>n and the inhabitants, and by some cannon shot. — 
The French had not yet landed their ordnance ; but the de- 
fences of Alexandria were so weak as to forbid all fear. — 
Buonaparte, therefore, bravely give orders to beat a charge; 
and the French, advancing towards the walls, prepared to 
scale them. While the generals and privates were attempt- 
ing to reach the summit, Kleber received a musket-shot in 
the head, and Menou was thrown back from the parapet, 
covered with contuisons ; but the walls were, notwithstand- 
ing, covered with republicans, Avhile the besieged fled. 
Here began a scene of horror and carnage, commanded by 
the sanguinary and barbarous policy of Buonaparte, which 
would hardly be credible, had it not been authenticated by 
the orig^inal letters of the French genera-s, intercepted by 
our cruizers, and made public by our government. After 
the butchery of every person on the walls or in the streets, 
all houses were forced and entered, and neither age nor sex 
spared. Trusting to the proclaimed respect of Buonaparte 
for their Prophet, numbers of Mussulmen took refuge in 
their sacred mosques ; but the republicans pursued them 
with the rage of cannibals : men and women, old and young, 
children at the breast, all were inhumanly murdered without 
resistance, as well as without pity ; and these bloody trans- 
actions lasted four hours ; when at last these improvers of 
the happiness of mankind^ glutted with massacre, desisted. 

From the manner in which the capture of Alexandria by 
Buonaparte is narrated by persons not interested to impart 
false impressions, it is beyond a doubt, because it is positive- 
ly affirmed, that this city was not summoned in order to 
found a pretence for storming it, and thus striking terror 
into the intended victims of Buonaparte's perfidy and bar- 
barity. In an intercepted letter from the French Adjutant- 



^ REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

general Boyer, addressed to General Kilmaine, are the fol- 
low i:ig' paragraphs : — ^' We began by making an assault 
upon a place without any defence^ and garrisoned by about 
500 Janissaries, of whom scarce a inaii knezv how to le'-jel a 
musket* I allude to Alexandria, a huge and wretched ske- 
leton of a place, open on every side^ and most certainly very 
unable to resist the efforts of 25,0(0 men, who attacked it 
at the same instant. We lost, notwithstanding 150 men, 
whom we might have preserved by only summoning the town; 
but it was thought necessary to begin by striking terror into 
the enemyy 

Possession of Alexandria having been thus obtained, the 
French commander, the Corsican i>uQnaparte, issued ano- 
ther proclamation among the miserable survivors of massa- 
cre, augmenting and improving upon his former ones, and 
vvhich will sigiaiise to all ages his contempt of divine insti- 
tutions ; a proclamation designed, undoubtedly, as a trick 
to allure the confidence of the natives ; but which, when- 
ever viewed impartially, must sink into the most degrading 
contempt the character of that military adventurer, who, 
in a piratical pursuit of plunder, not only committed the 
most unprincipled barbarities, but voluntarily announced 
the renunciation of his faith ; which, even when done thro' 
compulsi'.m, stamps on the delinquent the name of renegado, 
and is just y^considered as the last test of a depraved mind, 
9,s devoid of religion, virtue, and integrity, as incapable 
of honour. In this proclamation, '• he expressly denies 
Jesus Christ ;'' affirming, '•• that he himself, his generals, 
officers, and soldiers, are true professors of Islamism, who 
adore and honour the prophet Mahomet and his holy Koran j" 
that " as a Mussulman, he had overturned the throne of 
the Christii^n Pope visited Malta, and drove out the unbe- 
lievers from that island.'^ 

From this period until his defeat before Acre, in the 
spring of 1799, except in some skirmishes which he deco- 
rated with the appellation of battles, Buonaparte had no re- 
gular enemy to encounter, no armies to combat ; some strol- 
ling Mamelukes, or Arab$, were his only foes. To judge 
rightly, therefore, of the bombastic descriptions of his bat- 
tle of the Pyramids, and others, another passage from the 
above quoted letter is useful, and proper to be extracted ; 
^s the competency of the writer, a general communicating 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY, 55 

his sentiments and opinions to another general, cannot be 
questioned. Its date at Cairo, July 38th, ir98> proves it 
posterior to all engagements for the possession of Lower 
Egypt. *' Our enterance into Grand Cairo," says General 
Boyer, " will doubtless excite that sensasion at home which 
every extraordinary event is calculated to produce ; but 
when you come to know the kind of enemy that we had to 
combat the little art theij employed against us^ and the perfect 
nuility of all their measures ^ our expeditions and our victories 
will appear to you very cojmnon things. After this (the as- 
sault of Alexandria), we marched against the Mamelukes j 
a people highly celebrated among the Egyptians for their 
bravery. This rabble (I cannot call them soldiers), "which 
has not the most trifling idea of tactics^ and Vi^hich knows 
7iothing of war but the blood that is spilt in it, appeared, 
for the first time, opposed to our army on the 12th of July. 

" From the first dawn of day, they made a general dis- 
play of their forces, which straggled round and round our 
army, like so many cattle; sometimes galloping, and some- 
times pacing, in groups of ten, fifty, a hundred, &c. Af- 
ter some time, they made several attemps, in q style equally 
ridicidous ai>d curious, to break in upon us ; but finding eve- 
ry where a resistance which they probably did not expect, 
they spent the day in keeping us exposed to the fury of a 
burning sun. Had we been a little more enterprising this 
day^ I think their fate would have been decided ; but General 
Buonaparte temporised, that he might make a trial of his 
eneniy, and become acquainted with their manner of fight- 
ing. 

" This day ended with the retreat of the Mamelukes, 
xoho scarcely lost fve and twenty men. We continued our 
march up the Nile till the 21st, which was the day that put 
a final termination to the power of the Mamelukes in Egypt. 

" Four thousand men on horseback, having each a groom 
or two, bore down intrepidly on a nwnerous army of veterans ; 
their charge was an act of fury, rage, and despair. They 
attacked Dessaix and Regnier first. The soldiers of these 
divisions received them with steadiness, and, at the disi- 
tance of only ten paces, opened a running fire upon them, 
which brought down one hundred and fifty. They then fell 
upon Bonn's division, which received them in the same 
manner. In short, after a number of unavailing effons.^ 



54 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

they made off; and, ca'Tving with them all their treasures, 
took shelter in Upptrr Egypt. The fruit of this victory was 
Grand Cairo, where we have been ever since the evening of 
the 22d." 

Not counting those who perished in the massacre at Alex- 
andria, from this official letter we learn, that no more than 
one hundred and s venty-five enemies were killed by the 
French in those brilliant victories with a numerous armij cf 
"veterans, over four thousand inexperienced Mamelukes, which 
made them masters of one of the most fertile countries in 
the world. 

At the period of the inundation of the Nile, Buonaparte, 
with accustomed pomp, made the cut in the dyke which 
conveys the water to Cairo ; and the flow into the canal of 
Alexandria presented an opportunity, which was judicious- 
ly seized by Kleber, of transporting the artillery by water 
to Gizeh. General Andreossy sounded the Pelusian mouths 
of the Nile, the roads of Damietta, the Boghass, and C- -k 
Boyau, as well as the Dibeh mouth , entered the Lake Men- 
zaleh, where he overcame the resistance of the Arabs, who 
opposed him with a hundred and thirty of the Egyptian 
craft, called dgermes ; constructed a map of the Lake, and 
measured with the chain the circumference of the coast, 
over an extent of forty-five thousand fathoms ; determined 
the bearings of the islands, and discoviered the ruins of 
Tinch, of the ancient Pelasium, and of Farama. Having 
performed this operation, he returned to Cairo ; and speedi- 
ly set out, attended by the Savan Berthollet, to su vey the 
Lakes of Natron, where he acquitted himself with the same 
diligence and success. 

All the other Savans who accompanied Buonaparte were 
engaged in pursuits of greater or lesser importance, accord- 
ing to their powers ; some ascertained points in geography, 
surveyed canals, and made drawings of buildings and monu- 
ments ; others made collections and investigations for natu- 
ral history, constructed windmills, arranged almanacks^ and 
even composed a journal. 

During these transactions. General Dessaix, in pursuance 
of the directions of Buonaparte, waged an active and pros- 
perous war against Mourad Bey, in Upper Egypt ; although 
his enterprize was as dangerous as his proceedings were 
sanguinary. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 55. 

It is impossible to ascertain how far the people had been 
deceived, bv Buonaparte's hypocrisy, into an opinion that 
hii wsLS the friend of their sovereign^ and a zealous proselyte 
to their religion J but on the 21st of October, 1798, imme- 
diately on the appearance oi the Jirman declaring him an en- 
ttny to the Porte, an insurrection broke out, though without 
any apparent plan or system of operation. The assembling 
of the people, their discourse, and their menaces, excited 
neither curii sitv nor apprehension, till they began to attack 
and plunder the dwellings of the French. The principal 
meeting was before a mosque ; and General Dupuy, ad- 
vancing at the head of a smalt troop, to disperse them, was 
sliiin, with ail his followers : a few French were killed iu 
the streets ; but on the beating of the generale the main 
body flew to arms ; the streets were scon cleared ; the peo- 
ple took refuge in their mo;-ques, the doors of which Buo- 
naparte ordered to be forced, and the buildings fired ; an 
immense and indiscriminate slaughter followed ; friends and 
foes xvere alike exterminated, to glut the vindictive fury of 
the republicans : the horrible illumination, occasioned by 
the burning of part of the city ; the filing of artillery from 
the citadel, the screams and groans of people of all classes^ 
sexes, and ages ^ ^^SS'^^^S' ^^ "oainfor quarter, and the furi- 
ous shouts by which the French rallied and encouraged each 
other, formed a combination of horrors, which, in modern 
warfare, seldom occurs. Quarter was at last tardily and 
reluctantly granted by Buonaparte ; the city recovered a 
gloomy tranquillity ; but the most ferocious and rigorous 
measures were pursued for preventing future insurrection. 

This event occurred before Buonaparte hi-id made his 
survey of the Isthamns of Suez ; and while he was engaged 
in that research he learned that Dgezzar Pacha had seized 
and fortified the fort of El-Arish, and received such further 
intelligence as left him no longer in doubt of the hostile in- 
tentions of the Pcrte. Pursuing his accustomed policy, of 
assailing his opponents before they could become strong by 
union and formidable by preparation, Buonaparte arranged, 
witho t loss of time, a plan for attacking Dgezzar, setting 
apart for that purpose twelve thousand men, well supported 
with such artillery as could be transported according to ex- 
igency. He divided this force into five columns under 
Kleber, Regionier, Lanses, Bon, and Murat ; and, having 



56 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCtt. 

instructed his admiral Peree to embark heavy artillery dn 
board three frigates for Jaffa, and taken precautions for secur* 
ing the tranquillity of Cairo, prepared to head the expedition 
himself. Before his departure, hypocrisy^ apostacy, atheism, 
and fanaticism, were again resorted to, as pohtical measures 
to keep the ignorant natives quiet and submissive. The in- 
habitants of the capital, if not more, loyal, had, since the 
late butchery, become more obedient to their new chief, 
who endeavoured to deceive and rule them by means of their 
prejudices ; and, for this purpose, not only recurred to the 
doctrine of fatality^ but wished to instil a belief of his im' 
mediate i?itercourse zvith the divinity. In an address to the 
" Cherifs, Imans, and Orators of the Mosque," Buona- 
parte enjoined them to inculcate in the minds of the people, 
" that those who became his enemies should find no refuge 
either in this world or the next*"* 

" Is there a man so blind," says he, ^* as not to see that 
all my operations are conducted by destiny f Instruct the in- 
habitants, that ever since the world has existed, it was 
written, that after having overcome the enemies of Isla- 
mism, and destroyed the Cross, I should come from the fur- 
thest parts of the west to fulfill the task which has been im- 
posed upon me. Make them see, that, in the second book 
of the Koran, in more than twenty passages, that which 
has happened was foreseen, and that which shall take place 
has also been explained; let those, then, whom the fear of 
our arms alone prevents from pronouncing imprecations, 
now change their dispositions ; for in offering prayers to 
heaven against us, they solicit their own condemnation ; let 
the true believers then pi esent vows for our success ; / could 
call to account each individual among you for the most secret 
sentiments of his htart ; for I know every thing, even that 
which you never communicated to any person ; and the day 
will come when all the world shall witness, that, as I act in 
consequence of orders from above, human efforts are of no 
avail against me." 

" Three days afterwards Buonaparte, who had expressed 
much resentment at the compassion manifested by his troops, 
and determined to relieve himself from the maintenance and 
care of three thousand eight hundred prisoners, ordered them 
to be marched to a rising ground near Jaffa, where a division 
6f French infantr}^ formed against them. When the lurks 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 57 

had entered into their fatal alignment, and the mournful pre- 
parations were completed, the signal gun fired. Vollies of 
musquetry and grape instantly played against them; and 
Buonaparte, who had been regarding the scene through a 
telescope, when he saw the smoke ascending, could not re- 
strain his joy^ but broke out into exclamations of approval; 
indeed, he had just reason to dread the refusal of his troops 
thus to dishonour themselves. Kleber had remonstrated iii 
the most strenuous manner, and the officers of the Etat Ma- 
jor who commanded (for the general to whom the division 
belonged was absent) even refused to execute the order with- 
out a written instruction ; bu^ Buonaparte was too cautious, 
and sent Berthier to enforce obedience. 

" When the Turks had all fallen, the French troops hu- 
manely endeavoured to .put a period to the sufferings of the 
wounded ; but some time elapsed before the bayonet could 
finish what the fire had not destroyed, and probably many 
languished days in agony. Several French officers, by whom 
partly these details are furnished, declared that this was a 
scene, the retrospect of which tormented their recollection, 
and that they could not reflect ou it without horror, accus- 
tomed as they had been to sights of cf-uelty. 

*' These were the prisoners whom Assalini, in his very 
able work on the plague, alludes to, when he says that for 
three days the Turks shewed no symptoms of that disease, 
and it was. their putrifying remains which produced the pes- 
tilential malady, w<iiich he describes as afterwards making 
such ravages in the French army. 

"• Their bones still lie in heaps, and are shewn to every 
traveller who arrives: nor can tliey be confounded with those 
who perished in the assault, since the field of butchery lies 
a mile from the town. 

" Such a fact should not, however^ be alledged without 
some proof, or leading citcumstance stronger than assertion, 
being produced to support it , but there would be a want of 
generosity in naming individuals, and branding them to the 
latest posterity with infamy, for obeying a command, when 
their submission became an act of necessity, since the whole 
army did not mutiny against the execution; therefore, to 
establish further the authenticity of the relation, this only 
can be mentioned, that it was Bonn's division which fired, 
■md thus every one is afforded an opportunity of satisfying 

H 



S6 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

themselves respecting the truth, by inquiring of officers serv- 
ing in the different brigades composirig this division, 

*' 1 he next circumstance is of a nature which requires 
indeed the most particular details to establish, since the idea 
can scarcely be entertained,, that the commander of an army 
should order his own countrymen (or if not immediately 
such, those amongst whom he had' been naturalized) to b<i 
deprived of existence, when in a state which required the 
kindest consideration. But the annals of France record the 
frightful crimes of a Robespierre, a Carriere ; and histori- 
cal truth must now recite one equal to any which has black- 
ened its page. ' 

BuoAaparte, finding that his hospitals at Jaffa were crowd- 
ed with sick, sent for a physician, whose name should be in- 
scribed in letters of gold, but which, for weighty reasons, can- 
not be here inserted: on his arrival he entered into a long con- 
versation with him respecting the danger of contagion, 
concluding at last with the remark, that something must 
he done to remedy the evil, and that the destruction of 
the sick at present in the hospital was the only measure which 
could be adopted. The physician, alarmed at the proposal, 
bold in the confidence of virtue and the cause of humanity, 
remonstrated vehemently, representing th-e cruelty, as well 
as the atrocity of such a murder ; but finding that Buonaparte 
persevered and menaced, he indignantly left thetent, with 
this memorable observation — ' Neither my principles, nor 
the character of my profession, will allbw me to become a 
human butcher ; and. General, if such qualities as you in- 
sinuate are necessary to form a great man, I thank my God 
that I do not possess them.' 

" Buonaparte was not to be diverted from his object by 
moral considerations ; he persevered, an'd found an apothe- 
cary who (dreading the weight of power, but who since has 
made an atonement to his mind by unequivocally confessing 
the fact) consented to become his agent, and to administer 
poison to the sick, Opium at night was distributed in gra- 
tifying food ; the wretched unsuspecting victims banqueted ; 
and in a few hours five hundred and eighty soldiers, who had 
suffered so much for their country, perished thus miserably 
by the order of its idol. 

** Is there a Frenchman whose blood does not chill with 
horror at the recital of such a fact ? Surely the manes of 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 5^ 

these murdered unoffending people must be now hovering 
round the seat of government, and 

*' If a doubt should still exist as to the veracity of this 
statement, let the Members of the Institute at Cairo be ask- 
ed what passed in their sitting after the return of Jiuona- 
parte from Syria: they v/ill relate, that the same virtuous 
physician who refused to become the destroyer of those com- 
mitted to his protection, accused Buonaparte in the full as- 
sembly of high treason against the honour of France, her 
children, and humanity ; tiiat he entered into the full details 
ot the poisoning of the sick, and the massacre of the gar- 
rison, aggravating these crimes by charging Buonaparte with 
strangling previously, at Hosetta^ a number of French and 
Copts, who were ill of the plague ; thus proving that this 
disposal of his sick was a premeditated plan, which he wish- 
ed to introduce into general practice. In vain Buonaparte 
attempted to justify himself; the members sat petrified with 
terror, and almost doubted whether the scene passing before 
their eyes was not illusion. Assuredly all these proceedings 
will not be found in the minutes of thti Institute ; no, Buo- 
naparte's policy foresaw the danger, and power produced 
the erasure. But let no man, calculating on the foi^ce of cir- 
cumstances which may prevent such an avowal as is solicit- 
ed, presume on this to deny the whole ; there are records 
which remain, and which in due season will be produced. 
In the interim, this representation will be sufficient to stimu- 
late inquiry ; and. Frenchmen, your honour is indeed in- 
terested in the examination. 

*' Let us hope also, that in no country will there be found 
another man of such Machiavelian principles, as by sophis- 
try to palliate those transactions ; nor must the judgment 
abuse itself by bringing to recollection the horrors of the 
French Revolution, and thus diminishing the force of those 
crimes by the frequency of equal guilt in France, during her 
contest for Liberty or Slaverif." 

Preparatory to his march for St. Jean d'Acre, Buonaparte 
endeavoured to terrify or cajole Dgezza Pacha by an hypo- 
critical letter, in which he affirmed that he had treated xvith 
genei'osity such troops as had surrendered at discretion, 
though he had been severe towards those who violated the 
rights of war, and promised, that as God granted him vic- 
t^ory, he would, like him^ be merdjul,^ not only towards the 



60 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

people^ but towards the great. He recommended to Dgezr 
zar to abstain from resistance, to become the friend of the 
French, and the enemy of the Mamelukes and the English : 
and in reward he should be taken into favour, and exptrisnce 
more good th2Ln he had previously met with evil. 

This gross deceit was too clumsy to deceive even the moet 
unsuspicious of men, with the testimony of damning and 
recent facts to prove how far every sentiment of honour, 
mercv. or clemency, was from the heart of the writer. Dgez- 
znr sent only a brief verbal answer, implying that he would 
rather burv himself in the ruins of Acre, than suffer it to 
fall into the hands of Buonapaite. In expressing this reso- 
lution, he was encouraged not only by his own force and the 
assistance of the Porte, but by the unexpected aid of the 
genius, judgment, and valour of a British Captain and a 
French Royalist Officer of Engineers ; who were destined to 
revive in a remote centnry those exploits which, in the days 
of chivalrv, had rendered St. Jean d'Acre the theme of so 
much wonder and celebrity. 

Sir William Sidney Smith, after attaining the rank of 
Post-Captain in the British navy, had, in 1789, when his 
country Was at peace, offered his services to the King of 
Sweden, then at war with Russia, and conducted himself 
with such distinguished bravery during several actions with 
the Russian fleet, that the Grand Cross of the Military 
Order of the Sword was conferred upon him by Gustavus 
III. and he became the worthy chevalier of a great king, 
justly called ie Chevalier des I^ois. The war with France 
soon after made him as remarkable for his courage as for his 
talents and activity ; and it was to his care that Lord Hood 
entrusted the patriotic, but difficult task of destroying the 
fleet in the port of I'oulon. 

Become a prisoner to the French in consequence of an ex- 
ertion of personal bravery in the port of Havre, he was, 
contrary to the laws of war and of civilizied nations, by the 
orders of the infamous republican government, immurred 
within the walls of the same temple where so much vir-r 
tue and loyalty had suffered ; and every ettempt for his ex- 
change or enlargement was rejected. At length, however, 
the gates were thrown open by friendship, his liberty pro- 
cured, and his return to England facilitated, by means ^at 
favour of romance rather than of history. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 61 

The priests at Jerusalem told several British travellers 
^hat Buonaparte had said, that should he ever obtain pos- 
session of Jerusalem, he would plant the tree of liberty 
on the SPOT OJi which the cross of jesus stood, and would 
BURY the first erench grenadier who should fall in the at- 
tack, in the tomb of our blessed saviour ! ! ! 

His approach to Cairo was a moment of anxiety and ap- 
prehension — embarrassed as he was with dangers which re- 
quired all his audacity to face, and all his cunning and for- 
tune to avert. In a boastful letter, which was read in the 
Institute, he had used these expressions : *' In three days I 
shall be at Acre ; when, you open this, be assued that Dgez- 
zar Pacha is no more.^^ Nothing was left for him to veil his 
disgrace under the appearance of triumph^ and assume the 
deportment, not of a leader returning discomfltted and disap- 
pointed, but of a real conqueror. Orders were according- 
ly dispatched to the government at Cairo, ro prepare illu* 
minations, triumphal arches, and a festival for the Conquerors 
of Syria and of Dgezzar Pacha, The troops, who had des- 
pondingly anticipated a different reception, whose murmurs 
against the man who had planned their expedition amounted 
to mutiny, whose expressions even menaced death to him, 
as an atonement for their seven thousand comrades who had 
perished, saw with surprise the honours paid to them ; heard 
their chief and themselves styled conquerors ; and, in the 
delirium of vanity, forgot their injuries and defeats. The 
next morning Buonaparte, assured of the intoxication still 
continuing, assembled the remnants of his army on parade, 
distributed rewards, then moved forward a battalion of gre- 
nadiers, whom he upbraided with having refused to make 
another assault on Acre, and sentenced them to carry their 
arms slung behind till their characters were retrieved. This 
extraordinary stroke of policy converted many of Buona- 
parte's detractors into admirers. They confessed his know- 
ledge of the nature and character of French slaves, when in 
a few hours he could so improve his situation and re-assume 
his influence, as to disgrace those very men, who the day 
before would, with the applause of their comrades who now 
approved of their dishonour, had he uttered a word of cen- 
sure, have instantly assasinated him. 

From this period, till the time when he added desertion 
to his other crimes, Desaix continued victorious in Upper 



62 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Eg\^t, and Buonaparte himself defeated eight thousand 
Turks who had captured Aboukir, of whom, although 
2000 were saved, with his usual veracity, he declared, in 
his reports, the number, of killed and drowned amount- 
ed to seventeen thousand men. This achievement termi- 
nated the military exploits of Buonaparte in Egvpt. — 
The effrontery and ascendancy of his character, the cele- 
brity of his name, and dextrous application of his t;,lents to 
the purpose of maintaining his authority, were instiffi; lent to 
prevent the formation of a formidable part)' in his own army, 
who were dissatisfied at seeing the honour of France tar- 
nished by his wanton barbarities ; while the troops seemed 
doomed to be sacrificed to the pursuit of a conquest which 
would never be thoroughlv achieved, since every new suc- 
cess led only to the formation of more extravagant and dif- 
fusive designs. It has already been said, that on Buona- 
parte's return from Syria, the physician who had refused to 
administer poison, accused the general, in a full assembly of 
the Institute, of treason against the honour of France, her 
children, and humanitv. Fhe spirit of inquiry and resist- 
ance thus disclosed, and a conviction, derived from the con- 
duct of the troops at Acre, that a time might come when his 
commands would not be sufficient to secure general obedi- 
ence, powerfully stimulated him to the accomplishment of 
the wishes that he had always entertained of returning to 
France. To these motives were added others arising from 
inteLigence that he had received of the victorious progress 
of the allies in Italy, which totally destroyed all hopes of 
succour from France for the army in Egypt. When Buona- 
parte had fully resolved to quit his deluded comrades, whom 
he so often and so solemnly had promised never to leave be- 
fore he carried them back again to France, he prepared for 
the execution of his projects with the utmost secrecy, know- 
ing that the slightest suspicion of his design must have prov- 
ed fatal to him. He ordered Rear-admiral Gantheaume to 
equip, and keep in readiness for sailing, the frigates which re- 
mained in his possession, and to give notice the moment the 
combined British and Turkish squadron should quit the 
coast. The desired intelligence reached the general on the 
18th of August, at six o'clock in the evening: at nine he 
dispatched orders to those who were to share in the dishon- 
or of his desertion, and to accompany his flight, to hold 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 6& 

themselves in readiness to set out at midnight to attend him 
on a tour in Lower Egypt. 1 hey were to meet him on the 
beach ; and each was Turnished with sealed instructions, not 
to be opened till the moment of rendezvous. 

Gantheaume had stationed in the road, at the distance of 
a league from ihe shore, two frigates ; and Buonaparte, hav- 
i.igsccnred the military chest, and sealed orders for general 
Kleber, repaired on shipboard, attended by a few confiden- 
tial followers, leaving the army enraged, surprised, and des- 
pondent, to lament the miseries of their situation, and the 
perfidy of their chief. His voyage was at first retarded by 
contrary winds, and was considerably lengthened by the ne- 
cessity of steering close to the coast of Africa, which was 
considered as most likely to be out of the track of any Euro- 
ptan vessels, and least expose^:! to the dangers of pursuit. 
At length, however, they reached the port of Ajaccio, in 
Corsica ; and shortly afterwards Buonaparte landed near 
frejus, in Prov^ehce. 

From the next events that attended Buonaparte, it would 
seem as if Fortune, in the utmost caprice of her reputed di- 
vinity, had endeavoured to exhibit to the world a splendid 
and extraordinar}' specimen of her power to elevate a guilty 
individual, in defiance of circumstances and in contempt of 
merit. It can scarcely be supposed possible, that a general 
abandoning his army without even a pretext of orders, with- 
out the means of apprising government of his views, and 
without any sirong party in the state formed to favor him, 
should escape severe animadversion, or avoid personal 
degradation, if not punishment ; but at this period, so ab- 
ject was the domestic situation of France, that the gov- 
ernment, possessmg neither power, ability, virtue, nor po- 
pularity, appeared to await with stupid resignation the 
new revolution, which was to terminate its too protract- 
ed existence ^ while individuals were endeavouring, with 
clumsy exertions, only to avert the weight of ruin from them- 
selves, and establish such a character of comparative inno- 
cence, as would enable them to retreat in safety from the 
approaching storm. While the detestation of the Directory 
was general, accusations, recriminations, and denunciations 
occupied much of the time and of the debates in the two 
Councils. Jacobin clubs were already established at Paris 
and in many of the departments. '1 he blood-suckers andl 



64 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

terrorists of Robespierre and of his accomplices, coming 
forward from their hiding-places, provoked laws of barbar- 
ous severity against seditious movements, and the tyranni- 
cal enforcement of decrees for a forced loan and levy of con- 
scripts. 1 he torch of civil war was again lighted in many 
departments, particularly those in the southern and western 
parts of the French Republic. A sense of the inability of 
government to surmount these disasters was universally pre- 
valent ; and General Jourdan, a member of the Council of 
Five Hundred, had actually proposed a decree for declaring 
the country in danger, in the same manner as it had been de- 
creed after the 10th of August, 1792, and which had been 
the indirect cause and the direct excuse for all the crimes and 
horrors committed during the reign of the National Con- 
vention. 

One of the directors, Sieyes, was labouring with endea- 
vours which could scarcely be termed covert, for the over- 
throw of the government ; he was secretly assisted by Tal- 
leyrand, whom the Jacobins had lately forced to resign his 
place of Minister for the Foreign Department. The exact 
views of these crafty intriguers cannot be develloped ; but it 
is clear, that their past crimes, with a hatred of the right heir 
to the crown, on the one hand ; and a dread of the Jacobins, 
whom they had mortally offended, and therefore feared, on 
the other ; would impel them to avoid the re-establishment 
of royalt)'-, or the alteration of the existing system to a fornn 
favorable to the ferocious band of Republicans. Strength as 
well as firmness was evidently wanting to the executive powd- 
er ; and that could only be given by a dictator, or a protector- 
ship residing in one individual, not embarrassed by councils 
who had shewn that they knew neither hdw to use nor to re- 
strain authority, with whom faction was every thing, and 
virtue and liberty nothing. 

Such is a true, though imperfect picture of the internal si- 
tuation of the French commonwealth ; but if this was dread>- 
ful, the external actions and transactions of the French gov- 
ernment, and its generals and troops, were as contemptible, 
dishonorable, and disastrous. The Congress at Rastadt had 
proved to all the world the bad faith, the dangerous preten- 
tions, and the ambitious views of the Directory ; and the 
victories of the allies in Germany and Italy were convincing 
evidences of the^ weakness, disaffection, cr disorganization 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 65 

of the republican armies. The people, therefore, when for- 
tune landed Buonaparte ,n France, far from inquiring, i-to 
the causts of h.s past conduct, were happy to suppos° f at 
he brought the means of terminating their presemm s or 
tunes and d.sgraces • they flattered themselves tLu th ir 
destm.es were in his hands, and that the success which Ih 
formerly attended his banner in Italy would again be ex eta^ 
ed over the whole country. His arrival in Paris was tKre 
fore hailed as a great national deliverance -nd h. i 
«he centre of those intrigues which seeded t:rect.'e"tS: 
final sanction and guarantee from the addition of his nan ' 
1 he two Councils prostrated themselves at his feet IT 
a splendid and solemn banquet in honour of h' ^"""^ 
the church of St. Sulpice, Called, ste L Lvd'r 'th! 
Temple of Victory. At this fete the n;.. , '. '"® 

members of both Councils attended but t ^"V^ ^'^ 
forts of art and taste were exhrusted'i, r 'ndt n^f h ''"' ''- 
illustrious and agreeable, and the fraternarh, ^ " ^"""^ 
ousand animating, the general as eroftlS"' '""P'"" 
plete with constraint and embarrassment If'"'.' ^''^^ >•«- 
vailed on all sides ; the machinatioi s f" the neTortK^'"" 
of the Government and Constitution were real inh""" 
ned , mo execution ; huonaparte appeared o„ivf ^^ "■■- 
ment in the hall, and retired'; impre's^ed, perhL ^idiT 
fear which was never afterwards Absent from wfr;.- ?^ 

an so„,e morsel or some goblet, to be presented brthe'h^f 
of treacherj, or vengeance he might s'^vallow his death 
At length, three days after this fete, which ,.. 
new.converted Mussulman, had profaned a Chr' V ^u, * 
..nd after m.any secret inter^iewsLd 'rkl p'^Je?:^;'". 8,^'' 
Talleyrand, Fouche, Volney, Ucederer and ml ^^^ 

rators, Buonaparte <letermined to bury the Direc^n'- ^^T^'^ 
stitution amid the ruins of the four former '^ S""" 

since the Revolution, had made France wretehed"'an J, '''' 
bled Europe ; and to erect from their rubbTsh -. .'.^ f °"- 
vernment, which his bayonets should proclat, h t °* S°- 
enforce. and his bayonets protect or chan.lT' '"1^''^"'=^^ 
whim, passion, or cap.ice^. To achtvf th?"v "P """^ 
indispensably necessary to remove the /e'l """' 
from Pans, where both the loyaLdherents ^^ u""'"^ 

religion, and the guilty partisans of , wf monarch)- and 

anniUilated the thfone^^i^C ' .^.''^I^^l'^ f^" '-^ 

i-ti, were stiii numerous 



66 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

and powerful. The leading members of the Council of An- 
cients were therefore gained ; and, to conceal the real plot^ 
a suppositious one was feigned, in consequence of which 
the Legislature assembled at St. Cloud. An attempt was 
then made to seduce the Council of Five Hundred ; but as 
the majority proved refractory, the Corsican Buonaparte, 
imitating the conduct of the English Cromwell when he dis- 
solved the Long Parliament, and overturned that common- 
wealth which he had sworn to preserve, recurred to violence. 
The representatives of the French people were driven from 
their seats by the deluded soldiers of a foreigner ; three con- 
suls were substituted in the place of a directory of five ; and 
a ridiculous Senate, an enslaved Legislative Body, and a 
mock Tribunate, succeeded the Councils of Ancients and of 
Five Hundred. 

Before this usurpation was effected, he had as much flat- 
tered all parties, as he has since deceived them. By his 
known connexion with Sieyes and Volney, the republicans 
hoped for what he, the day before the Revolution^ had so 
solemnly promised, a Republic founded on true liberty, on 
civil liberty, on equality, and on national representation." — 
His intimacy with Talleyrand and Roederer, and the hints 
that he threw out, caused the constitutional royalists to hope 
for a revival of a constitutional monarchy ; while his past 
transactions at Toulon in 1793, and ut Paris in 1795, and 
his present consultations with Fouche of Nantes and other 
notorious terrorists, made the Jacobins believe in the re-es- 
tablishment of the anarchical conventional code of the year 
2, and the return of the reign of terror. He therefore ex- 
perienced but little resistance even from the Jacobins, who 
otherwise, on all occasions, have exhibited more energy and 
determination than the rebels of other factions. 

But if General Buonaparte had imposed upon them all, 
the First Consul tried to reconcile them by an equal distri- 
bution of places and lucrative employments, and by mixing 
in the same Senate and Councils, the royalist and the dema- 
gogue J the aristocrat and the democrat ; the republican and 
the terrorist ; the moderate and passive admirer of the Re- 
volution, and the extravagant, desperate, and active jacobin. 
Sieyes has said more than once, that the whole revolution, 
or, rather, all the revolutions, have been nothing but con- 
tinual change of places j and that ambition, plots, and in- 



1 HE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. &7 

trigues for places, have been the first and only movers of 
Frencli patriotism ; the only wish and call for a liberty equal- 
ly proscribed by all the heroes of the different revolutions 
for these last fourteen years. This heterogenous composi- 
tion, of chief intriguers and pretenders for places, has 
therefore already preserved the consular revolutionary con- 
stitution longer than any of the preceding ones. It has be- 
sides, by preferring affluence to rank, and slavery to liberty 
and equality, made the power of the usurper unlimited, and 
the actions of the consular tyrant uncontroulable ; so that 
all French citizens, v/hom neither places can make cour- 
tiers, pensions can silence, nor money bribe, the Tem- 
ple, the military commissions, the guillotine, or Cayenne, 
remove out of the way, or bury their clamours, murmurs, 
disaffections, or complaints. 

Having united all the authorities, both civil and military, 
in his own person, it only remained necessary to adapt the 
yoke to tlie necks which were to bear it, to prevent discon- 
tent at first 5 and in the early use of power to seem a bene- 
factor dispensing blessings, and not a tyrant imposing bur- 
thens. Yet the First Consul and his principal advisers. — 
Talleyrand and Fouche, were not now to learn, that, in or- 
der to retain uncontrouled ascendancy, it was necessary to 
fetter the press, if the unlimited right of publication re- 
mained, no permanent usurpation and dominion could be 
expected among a pe/^ple prone to changes, disposed to 
cavil, and disgusted with upstart governors afid govern- 
ments. 

The Executive Directory, from the moment of their 
establishment, had severely felt the embarrassment arising 
from this circumstance : their utmost despotism had been 
exerted in vain ; presses had been seized, journals suppressed, 
and editors punished with exemplary rigour ; but yet new 
presses, journals similar in sentiment, though different in 
name, and editors of equal audacity and ability, daily arose. 
Buonaparte, however, at an early period of his sway, termi- 
nated this difficulty, by decreeing that only a certain number 
of newspapers, magazines, and reviews, should be tolerated ; 
and the new constitution contained not a syllable in favour of 
the rights of printing or speaking. It is difficult, if not im~ 
jiossible, to find in the pages of history three guilty charac" 
ters, such as Buonaparte, Talleyrand, and Fouche, who had 



68 REVOLUTION^ARY PLUTARCH. 

more to apprehend from a liberty of the press, which might 
alike expose the crimes of the barbarous poisoner, of the 
crafty unfeeling intriguer, and of the ferocious terrorist, 
drowner, and plunderer. That it has been their constant 
plan, therefore, to enslave and fetter, in the same manner, 
the presses cf the countries where French arms have pene- 
trated, or French intrigues prevailed, is neither surprising 
nor unexpected. 

Having thus paralysed one of the most formidable means 
of creating au opposition to a revolutionary government, and 
knoM ing, as he did, that it was not his victories, but his pa- 
cifications, not his valour and fortune in the field, but his 
former negotiations and avowed professions for a peace, that 
had made him popular with the French Nation (which now 
totally disregarded all laurels and trophies of triumph, and 
only sighed and prayed for the termination of hostilities, and 
desired the olive-branch of peace to close the temple of 
Janus for ever;, he determined to preserve his popularity by 
the same hypocritical means by which he had obtained it, 
and to propose the cessation of war. He therefore wrote 
letters to the Emperors of Germany and Russia, and to the 
King of Great-Britain, containing the usual bombastic ex- 
pressions of the deceitful revolutionary cant, and declaring 
his abhorrence of war ; though ivar alone had dragged him 
from his obscurity, and made him every thing, i he first 
words in this letter which struck the eyes of lawful sove- 
reigns were, Liberty and Equality! As this was the 
accustomed etiquette of the former republican usurpers in 
their correspondence with neutral Princes, it would not de- 
serve any observation, had not the petty vain-glorious Buona-r 
pa'-te, on all occasions, with the ferocity of a tiger united the 
vanity of a coquet ; and therefore these words were neither 
written by chance nor by custom, but let all Europe know, 
that he pretended alieady toan equality with its first mo- 
narchs, though he had been only a fortnight an usurper : it 
proved to them what right and equality they might expect 
for the future, should fortune favour his vanity and preten- 
sions, and that his intent and endeavour would be, not only 
to insult and dishonour kings, but by such an equality to 
undermine and destroy monarchy itself ; and as all possible 
power could never procure him the equal respect due to legal 
princes, nor tfie equal regard customary between hereditary 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 60 

Sovereigns, his constant plans and plots would be to force 
them to descend to a level with him, as he can never ascend 
to an equal elevation, birth, and prerogative with them. 

By addressing this letter to our King himself, Buonaparte 
likewise deserted the regular forms of diplomatic proceed- 
ings : Lord Grenville therefore very properly answered Tal- 
leyrand, by observing, ** that the King, seeing no reason for 
departing from the forms of transacting aifairs between fo- 
reign states, which prevailed throughout Europe, had direct- 
ed him to ansvv^er the propositions of the First Consul, by a 
note to his minister." He traced the conduct of France 
from the origin of the existing hostilities, and noticed the 
repeated assurances made by every succeeding government 
of pacific intentions, whilst all their acts ivere replete with 
aggressions. " The new government had given no proofs 
of a despotism to adopt a different system, nor could any 
certainty be given of its stability. The best assurances which 
Great Britain could receive of the formation of a regular 
Government in France, would be the restoration of that race 
of princes, which, for so many ages, had preserved the 
French Nation in internal prosperity, and in consideration 
and respect among foreign powers. But although such an 
event would obviate every obstacle, his Majesty did not 
consider it indispensably necessary to the attainment of a 
safe and durable peace ; but whenever he should be of opini- 
on that the security of his own dominions^ and those of his 
Allies^ and the general security of Europe, could be attained, 
he would eagerly seize the opportunity to concert with his 
Allies the means of an immediate and general pacification. 
Hitherto no such security existed ; and nothing remained for 
him to do, but to prosecute, in conjunction with the other 
powers, a just and defensive war." 

At the very period when Buonaparte held the language of 
peace to Great Britain, his Ministers at Berlin, Stockholm, 
and Copenhagen, and his emissaries at St. Petersburg, were 
proposing and preparing the plan for that Northern Coalition 
against the British empire, which twelve months afterwards 
was concluded, and which Lord Nelson's victory dissolved. 
Our ministers, therefore, judged rightly of the First Consul's 
sinserity in a negociation offered and undertaken only to 
shew his consequence abroad, to preserve his popularity at 
home, and to lull, if possible, England into a fatal security. 



ro REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

or to lessen the vigorous efforts of the late ministers to crush 
to pieces the French revolutionary monster, as the only cer- 
tain means of terminating with honour, advantage, and safe- 
ty, a war which it alone had provoked and commenced. 

The attention of Buonaparte was next occupied by the dis- 
turbances that had taken place in the southern and western 
departments, and which seemed to augur a renewal of the 
Vendean conflict. Not satisfied with preparing an army to 
subdue the insurgents, his natural inclination, so well corres- 
ponding with the cruel and Machiavelian councils of Fouche, 
made him resolve by bribes, threats, intrigues, and murder, 
to finish what he called an impious war ; and by gaining 
over or disuniting some of the royalist chiefs, he hoped lo be 
enabled bravely to butcher the remainder without resistance, 
when either deserted or betrayed. Thus when d'Autichamp, 
Bourmont, Chatillon, and Fourmont received three hundred 
thousand livres eaeh, the loyal and incorruptible Frotte was 
betrayed and shot, though with arepublican safe-conduct in his 
pocket. K any doubt should remain of Buonaparte's hu- 
mane, generous, and conciliating measures in the insurgent 
department, the following lines extracted from the man- 
date which he sent to his military commissioners and to his 
pacifying generals, will dispell it : they were ordered '* to 
shoot every royalist -who should be found in arms^ and also 
every person liable to suspicion^ without sparing either age 
or sex ! — to strike those who negociate — to kill those luho he- 
si tat e or resist / / /" 

Having in such a noble manner quieted or got rid of the 
internal enemies to his usurpation, Buonaparte issued orders 
for the assembling of an army of sixty thousand men near 
Dijon, in Burgundy, called the Army of Reserve. To en- 
courage young men to join and enlist in the different corps 
composing this army, he issued an hypocritical proclama- 
tion, addressed to the passions of the French youths, and 
not to their reason, or to that of their parents :— 

" You are desirous of peace," says he : '' your govern- 
ment desires it with still greater ardour ; its most eai*nest 
wishes, its constant solicitude, is for that, and that alone. 
But the English ministry, eager to debase France to the rank 
of a secondary power ^ and anxious to keep all the continental 
states at variance, on purpose to seize on their spoils, still 
reject the idea. The government, however, which was not 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 71 

afraid to offer ^ and even to solicit this blessing, is well aware 
that it belongs to you to connmind it ; and to command it, mo- 
ney, steel and soldiers are necessary^ 

'' Let all, therefore, be eager to participate in the common 
defence. Let the young men fly to arms : it is no longer for 
the support of a faction^ it is no longer for the choice of a 
tyrant^ that they are called upon to take the field ; it \s for 
the safety of all that is dear to them ; it is for the sacred inter- 
ests of humanity, for the support of liberty, and for the 
honour of France^"* 

As, however, many doubted the stability of Buonaparte's 
government, and his solicitude for peace, while hitherto his 
only passion and glory had been war ; and were not quite 
sure that in fighting for an usurper they should be taking the 
field for the liberty and honour of France ; the proclamation 
had not the desired effect : the usual revolutionary measures 
M-^ere therefore resorted to. All young men, under the appel- 
lation of conscripts, were again torn from their families in 
the most oppressive manner, and compelled to serve ; but 
as he could not entirely depend upon these volunteers^ he 
united with them the veterans who had fought in La Ven- 
dee ; well knowing that soldiers who had not objected to 
stain their hands in the blood of their countrymen in arms 
for the throne and the altar, would have no repugnance to 
force others to fight for and defend the cause of usurpation 
and rebellion. 

Through the neglect, ignorance, or treachery of Melas, it 
was with an army thus composed, that Buonaparte was able 
to disorganize and enslave the European continent. 

The different columns which composed the Army of Re- 
serve marched early in May 1800 towards Geneva, and on 
the 12th of the same month were reviewed by the First Con- 
sul in the neighbourhood of Lausanne. 1 hey then conti- 
nued their march along the right bank of the Rhone, until 
they reached the confluence of the Duronce, near to IViar- 
tinack. Thus far the roads had been practicable j but before 
they could arrive at the Valley of Aosta, it became neces- 
sary to traverse tv/enty Italian miles cf the mountainous re- 
gions of the great St. Bernard, situated between those of 
Simplon and Mount blanc, nearly inaccessible to man, and 
over which a carriage had never passed. After some dan- 
gers and great fatigues, hgwever, the aimy reaped Aosta.j 



72 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

which, after a very slight resistance, opened its gates to the 
invader. Chatillon and the Castle of bard surrendered in a 
few days. Master of these places, and the Castle of Ivrea, 
Buonaparte had before him two roads by which he might 
march to the relief of Genoa, then closely pressed by the 
Austrians, and bravely defended by Massena ; the one by 
Chiv^asso, Turin, Asti, and Alexandria ; and the other by 
Vercetti, Navarre, Milan, Lodi, and Placenza. 1 he first 
was rather the shortest ; but, in preferring the other, Buo- 
naparte avoided the necessity of passing under the cannon of 
Turin and Alexandria, and gained the advantage of seizing 
the principal magazines and stores formed and collected by 
the Austrians on the Tessino, the Adda, and the Oglio, and 
which the latal security and negligence of Melas had left al- 
most unprotected. 

Notwithstanding the numerous army that Buonaparte car- 
ried with him into Italy, and which was far superior to the 
Austrians, he ordered and received reinforcements from 
General Moreau of twenty-five thousand veterans, com- 
manded by General Moncey ; and thus his army amounted 
to eighty-five thousand men, while that of the enemy was 
only about forty-five thousand. 

Although, in a fortnight after his descent from the Alps, 
Buonaparte was placed in the midst of his former conquests, 
yet he was with his whole army perfectly isolated, and it ap- 
peared certain that a single reverse must expose him to ine- 
vitable destruction ; trusting therefore to fortune, and to the 
number of his troops, he was very desirous of bringing Ge- 
neral Melas to a decisive engagement : he did not doubt but 
that the Emperor would send reinforcements ; and had the 
two armies been equal in numbers, Buonaparte, probabl}', 
would not have had more reason to boast of his campaign in 
Italy in 1800, than that of Syria in 1799. 

Genoa had capitulated on the 4th of June, and the block- 
ading army under General Ott joined the chief corps under 
Melas on the 9th : preparations were made for a pitched bat- 
tle, which on the part of the Austrians appeared only an or- 
dinary encounter ; whilst it was obvious, that upon the fate 
of this contest depended the power, reputation, and, per- 
haps, the life of Buonaparte. 

At day-break on the 14th of June, the Austrians divided 
into three columns, passed the Bormida upon an equal num- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 73 

ber of bridges ; that of the right ascended along the bank ; 
while the centre followed the great road leading to the vil- 
lage of Marengo, and the left advanced towards Castel Ce- 
riolo. After an obstinate contest, which lasted six hoars, 
the Austrians had gained possession of Marengo, and c^mt 
pelled General Victor, who commanded the left and the cen- 
tre, to retreat ; and his movement forced Lasnes, who com- 
manded the right wing, to adopt the same measure. The 
victory appeared complete ; the republicans, defeated in ail 
directions, retired in confusion to the plain of San Guilio, 
where Dessaix was placed wi^h a chosen corps de reserve. 
With this corps Dessaix made a sudden and desperate charge 
on the pursuing army i the Austrians were broken in their 
turn; and, after a close engagement of thirteen hours, vic- 
tory remained with the French. 1 he whole glory of this 
bitde appertains to Dessaix, for the laurels of Buonaparte 
had that day withered on his brow ; the First Consul was 
defeated and in full retreat, v/htn this General rustied for- 
ward and devoted himself for the preservation of his coun- 
tr3'men, though, by the caprice of fortnne, .the honour and 
advantages of the victory remained with Buonaparte, whil^ 
the victor Dessaix vras killed on the field of battle. Com- 
plete as this victory was, had not Melas been awed by the in- 
fluence of circumstances, his judgment dazzled by the suppos- 
ed ascendancy of Buonaparte, or his faculties enfeebled by thei 
temporary failure of his troops, he Would never have consen- 
ted to sign such a degrading, itnpolitic, and dishonourable 
armistice as that concluded and agreed on two days alter the 
battle of Marengo : the Imperial, troops Were not dispirited; 
on the contrary, they called for the renewal of the encounter, 
because they would not allow that the incident which closed 
the day entitled their opponents to claim the honours cf victo- 
ry. But the intrigues of Buonaparte were more successtul 
than even his armies: the great and experienced General Me-* 
las vanished from view, and nothing remained but an abject 
and dispirited individual, ready to yield to every terror, to 
purchase relaxation by every concession, forgetting alike his 
honour as a general, and his duty as a subject: influenced and 
blinded by a debasing panic alone, he gave up, m one evil 
hour, what had required years of victories and rivers of blood 
to conquer; and ixi acting so, he changed with a stroke of the 
pen the general aspect of aflairs, in sucn a manner, that- the 

K 



U REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

court of V ienna was unable to refuse the ratification of this 
inglorious and injudicious compact beween weakness and au- 
dactiy. 

From this brief account it is evident, that the subsequent 
disaters and humiliation of Austria, and the slavery of the 
continent, originated not from the battle of Marengo, which 
the Imperial commander lost to General Dessaix; but from 
the convention of Alexandria, which Buonaparte swindled 
from the trembling Melas. 

Buonaparte was now again enabled to ravage wretched Ita- 
ly; and that he did so, surprised nobody who had witnessed 
or suiferedfrom his former dominion over that country; but 
though absent only three years, he had during that period 
proclaimed himself an apostate, renounced his Saviour, and 
adored Mahomet. It astonished even his generals and the 
Italian patriots, therefore, to see this arch-hypocrite, after 
the victory of Marengo, affect once more to be a Christian, 
by ordering Te Deum to be sung at the Metropolitan Church 
at Milan, for the happy deliverance of Italy from heretics and 
infidels I and dare to pronounce the name of his Redeemer, 
whom he, as a political Judas, had so frequently deserted. 

At once the sovereign disposer of the immense resources 
of fertile Italy, as well as those of France, Switzerland, and 
Holland Buonaparte expected to dictate terms of submis- 
sion to his continental enemy ; and to dishonour him, by 
compelling him to desert his British ally before his forces 
had been conquered by French arms. But had the Aus- 
trian army been as ccmplete as its fidelity and spirit were, 
great ; and the First Consul, instead of Moreau, had com- 
manded the republicans in Germany, where a young prince, 
and not an old woman, headed the brave Imperialists — the 
cowardly blunders of Italy might have been repaired, and 
Europe been yet free ; because Moreau, though vastly su- 
perior to his opponents, gained the battle of Hohenlinden 
only by his brilliant and vigorous manoeuvres, surpassing, ia 
the opinion of military men, all that Buonaparte ever achiev- 
ed, or pretended to achieve, by force of numbers, perfidy, 
and blood. 

As the valour of Dessaix had procured Buonaparte Italy, 
so the successes of Moreau in Suabia, Bavaria, and Aus- 
tria, made him powerful enough to oblige Austria, for the 
first time, to acknowledge, in a formal tieaty, the superi- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 7$ 

ority of France, and to resign to the French republicans the 
first place among continental states, which it had for centu- 
ries maintained and defended. But the treaty of Liineville, 
it it be a monument of the weakened situation of Austria, 
is at the same time an eternal reproach to an ungenerous, 
fortunate foe, who by this pacification told all the world, that 
an universal republic^ founded upon universal plunder, tor- 
riiption, and overthrow, is the constant plan and determina- 
tion of the Corsican ruler over the French ; more so than 
an universal monarchy was formerly that of some of the 
lawful sovereigns during the French monarchy. 

England being now the oPvly active enemy of the French m 

Republic, Buonaparte employed all his arts and influence in fl 

exciting such a spirit among his own subjects, and establish- 
ing such a system among the other powers of Europe, as 
Would promote his views of crushing, and, if possible, de- 
stroying the British nation. Eveiy commotion in France, 
every attempt of expiring factions, every crime dictated by 
political enthusiasm or personal vengeance, was imputed to 
the secret agency of the British administration; and enslaved 
as was the French press, and prejudiced and ignorant as 
were the people, it was not more difficult now, than during 
the former periods of the Revolution, to dupe their credu- 
lity and excite their passions by the grossest absurdities — 
They easily believed, therelore, when Buonaparte's coun- 
tryman Arena, and several other jacobins, in revenge for 
being imposed upon by his revolutionary hypocrisy, con- 
spired, or rather were accused^ of having conspired his de- 
struction, and when some enthusiastic anti-republicans en- 
deavoured by their infernal machine to rid the earth of a 
rebel who had long dishonoured it by his crimes before he 
oppressed it by his tyranny, that both these plots were paid, 
by British gold, and planned in British councils. To con- 
firm the French people in their belief, a fabricated narrative, 
the production, and v/orthy of the genius, veracity, and hu- 
manity, of the regicide Fouche, was published, and made 
use of as a. political instrument to inflame the republicans a- 
gainst the British Government and Nation, by imputing to 
them a design totally repugnant to the nature of English- 
men, that of assassinating an enemy. They widingly ac- 
credited every fiction, however gross, and not only gave im- 
plicit faith to the tale suggested by die late transactions, but 



f6 REVOtUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

•were convincedhy the official consular Moniteur, that all the 
horrors and murders which had dis6gured France in the 
course of the Revolution were directed and paid by the 
British Governmc-nt, that Mirabeau and Brissot, Ptiarat and 
Robespierre, Rewbell and Barras, had all obtaine4 instruc- 
tions and salaries from Pitt, to guillotine, to murder, to 
shoot, to drown, or to transport the virtuous French Citir 
zens. 

but while Great Britain maintained the indisputable so^ 
vereignty of the ocean, the effect of French or Corsican 
hutred was little to be apprehended. To countervail, there- 
fore, the ascendancy of the Krilish naval power, Buona- 
parte availed himself of some jealousies and disputes be- 
tween England and two of the Northern Powers; and by 
one of those strange turns of politics, which often derange 
the best projects of huipan wisdom and foresight, the Em- 
peror of Russia, totally changing those noble p inciples which 
had entitled him to the greatest share of admiration, fr- m a 
loyal defender of all thrones was become a zealous partizan 
of French usurpation, and the soul of a league with Prussia, 
Sweden, and Denmark, fabricated under the auspices of 
Buonaparte, for the ruin, as it was hoped, of Great Britain. 
As success guilded the banners of the Corsican, th« eyes of 
the Emperor Paul became dazzled ; and, seduced by French 
emissaries, he panted to share his friendship. Buonapartp 
easily appreciued the character of this unfortunate prince ; 
and saw that he rather admired what was splendid, than pur- 
sued what was jur,t j that he as often confounded fortune 
with merit, as caprice with reason : he therefore flattered the 
Emperor's vanity, and desire of being thought a model of 
heroism and virtue, by the most abject and incessant sooth- 
ings J bkt such is the blasting curse of Buonaparte's friend- 
ship, that the Russian monarch had not been six months con- 
nected with, or attached to this republican ruler, before 
a premature death broke those ties, which victorious crime 
had no intention to respect any longer than interest demand- 
ed, or hypocrisy continued to dupe capricious or imbecile 
power. Under these circumstances the victor of the Nile, 
gathering new laurels before Copenhagen, again blighted the 
hopes of Buonaparte, and dissolved in one clay a confederacy 
which French emissaries and intriguers had been mpntha 
preparing and concluding. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. n 

Obtaining at the same time information of the victories 
;and progress of the British arms in Egypt, Buonaparte deter, 
mined to trv to gain by the cunning, sophistry, and Machia- 
velism of his negociators, those advantages for which his 
warriors and those of his allies had in vain been combating 
both in Europe and in Africa, both in the Sound and befo € 
Aboukir. For near six months Citizen Otto therefore coi • 
responded, presented plans and counter-plans, for a pacifica- 
tion between Great Britain and France ; but he did not sign 
the preliminaries before he had ascertained that no French- 
man commanded any longer in Egypt, by the surrender of 
Alexandria to Lord Hutchinson. 

As the perfidy of Buonaparte and his representative, in 
giving up Egypt, only as a compensation for the restitution of 
the French colonies, at a time when they were fully acquaints 
ed with the fall of Alexandria, has been doubted by manj<^ 
the author, who during the summer of 1801 was a prisoner 
on parole at Marseilles, can affirm, that on the 21st of Sep- 
tember, a vessel anchored in its neiglibourhood from Alex- 
andria, which it had left on the Ist of the same month, and 
brought the official account of the capitulation of General 
Menou, concluded two days before, or August 30th. This 
capitulation was known upon the Exchange at Marseilles 
before three o'clock that day ; in the evening at the play- 
house, both the Prefect La Croix, and the Commander Gen- 
eral Cervoni, made no secret of it, or that they had expedit- 
ed couriers to Paris with information to government of this 
event. Orders were besides publicly sent to the commissaiy 
of marine, and to the inspector of the quarantine, to prepare 
provisions, refreshments, &c. for the garrison of Alexandria, 
of which four hundred men arrived on the 1st of October in 
the road of Marseilles. The distance between this city and 
Paris is two hundred leagues, which a courier may easily 
travel in four days and nights ; no doubt therefore can re-f 
main, but that before the 26th of September the surrender of 
Menou was known to Buonaparte, who, in consequence, or- 
dered Otto to conclude a peace, which though highly hon- 
orable to the good faith and sincerity of the British cabinet, 
treachery alone signed on the part of Fran e. 

i he impolitic eagerness to applaud Lauritson, who brought 
over the preliminary treaty, and the honours (humiliating 
^o all loyal Britons) which were shewn to this emissary of an 



7S REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

usurper, caused Buonaparte and his minister Talleyrand to 
believe that such was the want and desire of peace amongst 
all classes of Britons, that they might do, contrary to the in- 
terest of England, any thing that caprice, passion, or ambi- 
tion should instigate or demand, to gratify humour, avarice, 
hatred, pretension, or vanity. A peace, or rather, a treaty 
of peace, was therefore swindled from the Sublime Porte, 
and an army sent to St. Domingo. Buonaparte usurped the 
supreme magistracy in Italy, and added Parma, the island of 
Elba, and Louisiana, to his other dominions. All these in- 
direct threats to Great Britain, and real acquisitions to 
France, took place within six months after the preliminaries 
had been agreed to, and before the definitive treaty between 
England and France was signed ; and the very day after its 
signature, he insulted our country by another treaty with 
J.£oUand, which deprived our ancient ally, the Prince of 
Orange (the relative of our beloved Sovereign,) of all his 
claims in the Batavian Republic. These repeated and bare- 
faced provocations made the most enlightened politicians, 
both in England and upon the Continent, conclude that Buo- 
naparte had no intention to live in peace and amity with the 
British empire, and they, in consequence, anticipated a 
speedy renewal of hostilities. 

And, in fact, from the beginning to the end of this (for 
the happiness of the world) short-lived peace, every act of 
Buonaparte was as imperious as unjust, as humiliating as 
vexatious to us : new restraints were laid upon our com- 
'meree, the debts due to British subjects were never paid, and 
all British travellers (with some few political and patriotic 
€xeeptions) were either vexed, insulted, plundered, or arrest- 
■ed; the representative of our nation, as well as the lowest of 
its members, felt the effects of Buonaparte's unmanly and 
ungenerous hatred toward this country ; and, as if afraid 
that his audacity and ill-will should not be sufficiently known 
throughout Europe, the political monster, in his official Mo- 
niteur, continued to accuse and calumniate Great Britain, 
and to dictate to its government in the manner that he was 
accustomed to command the enslaved nations of Italy, Swit- 
zerland, and Holland, When at last, therefore, the patience 
and moderation of our ministers were exhausted, and we 
were permitted to call a man our enemy vv^ho had never been 
our friend, the unanimity was greater in favor of war, than 
the rejoicing had been for the cessation of hostilities. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 79 

Short as the peace was, however, it had been useful, by 
exposing in its true light to all deluded, factious, or seduced 
Britons, the real character of a man in favor of whom many- 
had been so infatuated ; whose hypocrisy was as great as his 
cruelty ; who offered freedom when he intended slavery, and 
held out equality when all his actions and transactions had 
proved that he could no more endure an equal than a su- 
perior. 

.Wherever Buonaparte was only known by his fame as a 
fortunate general, he was admired ; but ])eople of all coun- 
tries and climates, in America -as well as in Europe and Afri- 
ca, when cursed by his presence, or the presence of his arm- 
ed or disarmed slaves : soon changed admiration into detest- 
ation — ihe tyrant has been abhorred, and the victor hated or 
despised. Under pretence of encouraging commerce, and 
extending his paternal protection to the colonies, he duped, 
arrested, and murdered Toussaint L'Ouverture, and violated 
the plighted honour of the nation to the unhappy negroes, 
who had by their arms preserved St. Domingo as a French 
colony ; but whom his treachery made ferocious, and whose 
valour and despair, assisted by the diseases of an unhealthy- 
Atmosphere, have annihilated numbers of those veteran 
troops, who had escaped the fire, sword, and bayonets of the 
English, the German, the Italian, the Turk, and the Mame- 
luke. Buonaparte could not trust in France, and therefore 
sent to perish in St. Domingo, near two-thirds of that ill-fat- 
ed army, consisting of chosen men, who had fought and dis- 
tinguished themselves under Generals Pichegruand Moreau, 
bvit were suspected by the Corsican, with whom transporta- 
tion or death always and immediately follow suspicion. 

By the religious Concordat, which he put the Pope in re- 
quisition to approve and sign, Buonaparte published his own 
disbelief in all religions, and that he was actuated only by 
policy and not by faith ; and therefore, instead of tranquiliz- 
mg the consciences of the timorous, he troubled those of the 
really devout christians, who, seeing a murderer and a poi^ 
soner, an apostate and a blasphemer, sacrilegiously usurp the 
right of proclaiming himself the restorer of the worship of 
our Saviour, began to doubt whether it was possible that a 
God could exist, and permit such outrages and unheard-of 
impiet)' and profanation, by suffering this cruel man to aug-^ 
jaaent the mass of his revolutionary crimes, and with a revo- 



80 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

lutionaiy religion, to prophane the altars of his God, as he 
had already done the throne of his king. 

In creating a corps called the Legion of Honour^ Buona- 
parte, in a republic of equality, has t rected a revolutionary 
nobility,, with rank, precedence, and privileges, far superior 
to those of all former nobles, either in France or Europe. 
What causes the French people to suffer so much the more 
from these novi homines, or republican & upstart patricians, 
is, that most of them are men sprung from the very dregs of 
the revolutionary mobs^ who within these last fourteen years 
have committed the most enormous crimes ; possessing no 
more education, probity, or patriotism, than hf.nour. moral- 
ity, or religion ; who are only slaves to the Corsican, that 
they may, unpunished, tyranize over their covmtrymen. 

It is a curious fact, that regularly every 7jear, since Buo- 
naparte usurped the throne of the Bourbons, he has, by seme 
changes or other, once or oftener, violated that constitution 
which made him a First Consul. In 1800, the return of the 
emigrants and of the proscribed clergy ; in 1801, the concor- 
dat with the Pope ; in 1802, the amnesty for the emigrants, 
and the consulate for life ; in 1803, the legion of honour — • 
are all despotical acts, and institutions contrary to the very 
letter of the republican code, which he, in 1799, had so 
solemnly sworn to respect. Knowing the changeable and 
unsteady French character, he has taken care to provide 
yearly some new subjects for the speculation and occupation 
of philosophers as well as of politicians, to encourage the 
hope of the royalists, without diminishing the expectation 
of the republicans, or the hope of the Jacobins. He has 
promoted and employed men of all parties, deceived men of 
all parties, and punished men of all parties ; and thus, by 
making them by turns his accomplices, slaves, or victims, 
he rules over them all and has already reigned longer than 
any of his revolutionary predecessors. 

With the same cunning, impudence, and audacity that he 
allures, cheats, or oppresses French citiztns, he undermines 
monarchy, and, in the persons of their representatives, in- 
sults and degrades foreign monarchs j shewing that he does 
not intend to respect the prerogative of lawful sovereigns 
more than the rights of tree people, the independence of states 
more than the laws of nations or etiquette of cou: ts. The 
vulgar language of the^corps des gardes, and the command- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 81 

ing language of the camp, arc oftner heard in the castles of 
the Thuilleries and St. Cloud, than the decorous conversa- 
tion and dignified address of a chief magistrate and com- 
mander over one of the most civilized nations in the world. 
At Buonaparte's diplomatic audiences, at his military reviews 
or levees, at the court circle with his wife, the ambassadors 
of emperors and kings tremble and blush, not for themselves, 
but for the First Consul, who so often forgets his rank, and 
stoops to a behaviour and conversation which his lowest va- 
let should be ashamed to make use of among his equals in 
the republican servants'-hall or in the consular kitchen. It 
is true, the Temple is no longisr in fashion, to teach /?nW- 
leged diplomatic agents the revolutionary laws of nations ; 
but the First Consul, in the audience chamber at the Thuil- 
leries, is often more illiberal, unfeeling, and ungenerous, 
than was formerly the First Jailor over the official dun»' 
geons in the republican Temple-bastile. 

When, in 1786, Louis XVI. went to Cherbourg, he was 
escorted by no more than forty of his life-guards : when 
Buonaparte, in 1803, went to Normandy and Brabant, his 
escort consisted oitiOclve hundred horsemen* All the expen* 
ces for the journey which Louis XVI. made, did not amount 
to a million of livres, or forty-two thousand pounds ; the 
dailf/ cxpences of Buonaparte and his suite, during the late 
journey, were calculated by his minister Marbois at the rate 
of six hundred thousand livres, or twenty-fiv^ thousand 
pounds sterling. Such is the difference between the order 
and economy of a regular and paternal government, and the 
tyranical one of an upstart and usut'per ; as extravagant now 
as he was formerly poor and distressed. 

Bourrienne, Buonaparte's confidential secretary, v/as last' 
autumn, dismissed with disgrace, and disgraced with eclat ; 
some indiscreet observations, on what had come to his know- 
ledge during the seven years that he shared the confidence^ 
and perhaps the crimes of Buonaparte, was the cause of a 
rupture, which niany thought impossible, because they believ"* 
ed impolitic on the part of the Corsican. In hopes to regain 
favour,or with a design to revenge wrongs, Bourrienne 
published a pamphlet called The Livre-Rogue of the Consu* 
iar Courts dedicated to the Economists, and other Modern Re- 
formers, 

L 



«2 • REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Before it could be offered to the public, the police at Paris 
seized it, and the author and printer were both sent to the 
Temple. With the exception of three copies, the whole was^ 
destroyed : from one of these copies we shall present the 
public with an extract. 

Bourrienne's preface to this phamphlet contains no les& 
than twenty-four pages, intended to prove the near connecti- 
on between revolutionary government and revolutionary 
finances ; that the confusion of the one is inseparable from 
the anarchy of the other ; and a decree of the First Consul, 
or a Senatus Consultus of his slavish senate, may as well de- 
clare it against the honour of the Great Nation to have any 
national debt, as it has already decreed and declared it poli-- 
tical to dishonour the Great Nation with a Corsican Consul 
for life. 

It is a fact, says Bourrienne, which Frenchmen and Fo- 
jreigners have not sufficiently attended to, that since our finan- 
cial quacks, the economists, began to put their absurd theo- 
ries into practice, we have no more order or regularity in our 
finances, than, from practising the no less absurd and danger- 
ous theories of our political quacks, we have received the 
blessings of liberty for our persons and principles, or the hap- 
piness of security for our property and possessions. So 
long as France continues to have no staple government, it will 
continue to have no finances ; and the French Government 
can never be called stable, whilst its stability depends upon 
the life of one individual, and that individual a foreigner, or 
at least no Frenchman, but a cruel and vile Corsican in- 
triguer. 

Mellajubes Hyblcca tibi vel Hymettia nasct, 
Et thyma Cecropice Corsica ponis api. 

MART. 

Corrupt, divide, and terrify, are the three great pillars of 
Buonaparte^s throne ; and on these it may stand for a time, 
but without other support it can never be pemianent. Let 
him array himself in all the borrowed splendour of usurped 
authority, let him put on his purple robes steeped in the blood 
of innocence, and his diadem torn from the brcrw of a mur- 
dered monarch ; let him call himself Emperor of the Gauls, 
or the French, or any other slaves, he pleases, yet all 
this will not add one atom to his comfort or security, nor 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. S3 

«liield him from the contempt of insulted humanity : the 
worm will still gnaw at his heart, if he has any thing human 
about him ; his subjects v/ill yield him only constrained sub- 
mission, and should Providence permit his destruction, when 
that is accomplished, the shout of exultation will resound 
from the frozen territory of Lapland to the thirsty desarts 
of Arabia. The continuance of the imperial government 
will depend not on the general acquiescence of the people, 
but on the strength of the revolutionary party ; if they can 
overpower the royalists, by obtaining the support of the ar- 
my, the new dvnasty may be established ; if they have not 
address nor interest enough to' manage this point, the return 
of the Bourbons is secured, it will be completely a struggle 
between two opposite forces, and it is difficult to say which 
will prevail ; for as to the preference of royalty to republi- 
canism, that is already settled ; it is only whether monarchy 
«hall be administered by an old family or a new one. The 
prejudices in favor of royalty are chiefly derived from its 
antiquity ; whatever seems to lose itself in the obscurity of 
past times, derives a degree of respect from that single cir- 
cumstance ; a coin, a marble, a houae^ a tree, or a castle, 
though insignificant in themselves, become venerable from 
the length of time which they are supposed to have existed. 
The monarchies of the old world claimed their origin from 
heaven, in order to reconcile men to their novelty on earth ; 
and there is hardly a royal family in Europe whose ancestors 
cannot be traced back through fifty or sixty generations ; for 
their progenitors, if not royal, were noble, and had been so 
irom remote antiquity. A band of robbers, sprung from 
the lowest of society, who should call themselves kings and 
princes, might be feared, laughed at, and worshipped, but 
they could never be respected. On the other hand, the 
claims of merit, added to official rank, can never be despised 
for want of noble origin, they derive their respect from their 
evident utility, sanctioned by the reason, and not by the folly 
of mankind. How ridiculous must a set of self-created 
kings and princes appear who claim a title chiefly supported 
by prejudices, without having any of those prejudices in 
their favor ; they may be feared, but fear is a treacherous 
guardian of security : if they wish to be loved, they must 
seek for it in their virtues, real, and not pretended. The 
liewly-assumed dignity of Buonaparte and his family has 



84 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

two difficulties to contend with, the want of prejudice and 
the want of virtue ; and these time alone can overcome. If 
it passes quietly from the first possessor to another, it may 
take root and flourish ; but if it cannot bear the first trans- 
mission, it will fall never again to be raised. Should this be 
the case, the two Buonapartes who are omitted in the suc- 
cession to the empire, will then be considered the most for- 
tunate of the family : yet this omission is a striking evidence 
of the new Emperor's mean and revengeful spirit : the one, 
it is said, has affronted, and the other has disgraced him, 
and he took that opportunity to stigmatize them as unwor- 
thy of any share in the imperial dignity. 

The Imperial constitution, whatever may be its merits or 
defects, with such as Buonaparte at its head, will be mere 
waste paper ; it may amuse speculative politicians, and an 
ignorant populace, the dupes of his artifice ; but while he 
lives, it will remaih a dead letter ; it is a compliment to the 
spirit of the times, because it contains some provisions fa- 
vorable to liberty, but of little use to the people for whom it 
is intended. Buonaparte is not a man to be controlled by 
paper constitutions or political philosophy ; he smiles at the 
impotence of both when measured against his all-powerful 
mind, a mind superior to the common restraints of law 
or policy, and limited only by the utmost bounds of possi- 
bility ; and had it been as strongly turned to virtue as it is to 
vice, might have blessed the world with lasting tranquility. 

The fortune of Buonaparte has been more singular than 
even his talents, for .every thing conspired to forward his 
views of ambition and conquest. The tyranny and folly of 
th« Directory opened the way to his attempts, and finally 
put every thing in his reach; the obstinacy of Pitt gave him 
the victory of Marengo, atid seated him in his power more 
firmly than if he had instantly concluded a peace with him, 
on his first accession to the government. The period of 
the revolution at which he came into power, was also favor- 
able to him ; for the nation, weary with the struggles of con- 
tending parties, and disappointed in their hopes of liberty 
and prosperity, gave him credit for his first professions in 
favor of tranquility and social happiness, and they reposed 
on him as their saviour, after all their dangers and difficul- 
ties. From these hopes on the side of the people, and by 
tl^ese professions on his own, he secured the confidence of 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 85 

the countrv, and, in the plenitude of their faith and gene- 
rosity, thev gave him more than they will find it easy to re-^ 
cover ; and by placing him in the sovereignty of France, 
enabled him from thence to direct his cannon against the 
liberties and independence oi" Europe. 

The restless activity of Buonaparte's disposition, forms a 
part of his character the moet dangerous to mankind, from 
the station wherein he is placed, which, combined with the 
magnitude of his objects, and the evil tendency of his mind, 
has been the means of hitherto embroiling the world in con- 
fusion and warfare. The benevolent nature of Washington 
was a circumstance which contributed materially towards 
tranquilizing America, and as the world is at present go- 
verned by a few individuals, no greater haj^iness can fall to 
the lot of nations, than that those individuals should be pa- 
cifically inclined ; and history v/ill furnish us with exam- 
ples sufficient to prove, that the prosperity of a country is 
more effectually promoted by the cultivation of the peaceful 
arts, than by all the conquests of ambition. The quiet 
reigns of Henry the Seventh and Jame? the First, did more 
for thier country than all the boasted victories of the Edwards 
and the Henries. Under the former, the tyranny of the 
feudal system first began to be shaken, and commerce first 
began to flourish ; and, from the latter, Ireland first received 
the benefit of English law and English generosity. Under 
the peaceable administration of Sir Robert Walpole, the 
prosperity of England was carried to its highest pitch. Had 
Buonaparte possessed the mild virtues of Washington, both 
France and Europe might have been now at peace, or, had 
Washington been tormented with the savage ambition of 
Buonaparte, America might have been involved in all the 
broils of Europe, and, to the curse of herself and her 
neighbours, become a military nation, than which no greater 
evil can befal the civilized world. Should monarchy be re- 
stored in France, Europe may regain her peaceful habits and 
commercial relations and society, instead of degenerating, 
as it is likely to do, into a state of barbarous slaver}% may 
become gradually more civilized, and the rights of nations, 
and their duties to each other, more respected and better 
understood. 

History has left upon record many great men whose cha- 
,jracters are. not yet settled. Cicero has been equally praised 



86 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

and depreciated — Csesar has found many admirers, Pom- 
pey has been extolled by some and depressed by others, and 
even Sylla has found an advocate in a Christian divine : but 
Buonaparte, notwithstanding the present adulation of French- 
men, will descend to posterity without dividing the opinions 
©f mankind on his character ; ambition is the ruling passion 
of his soul, to which all his other wicked propensities are in 
their turns subservient. By talents formed for command, 
he has obtained an empire over his fellow-creatures, without 
possessing any qualities which can render him worthy of 
power : cruel, treacherous, revengeful, crafty, and unprin- 
cipled, he has thrown down every barrier which the laws of 
civilized society, in modern times, had placed against the 
encroachments of ambition ; and, availing himself of revo- 
lutionary tumult, has assumed a power infinitely greater 
than the revolution had destroyed ; like Augustus, he aifects 
to preserve the forms of a republic, and thus reconcile the 
nation to his tyranny ; yet it is a republic in which liberty ap- 
pears only in name, and in which equality is frittered away by 
arbitrary institutions, without either respectability or dignity. 
Though qualified both by inclination and talents for every 
species of artifice and intrigue, yet his violence sometimes 
so far gets the better of him, as to set all disguise at defi- 
ance; conscious, perhaps, of this weakness, he has been 
careful to employ men in his service who have a greater con^ 
trol over their passions than himself, and are capable of the 
most refined villainy. His general character has already had 
a fatal effect on the manners of the French, who, from be- 
ing the most polished people in Europe, are now little bet- 
ter than a nation of banditti ; for, having ceased to respect 
the rights of other nations and the laws of civilized society, 
they can be considered in no other light. His military cha- 
racter and propensities have also been fatal to the gene- 
ral situation of Europe. The opposition to the French re- 
volution, by the other European powers, first changed its 
original direction, and established, as Lord Landsdown fore- 
told, a military republic in the heart of Europe. Buona- 
parte confirmed what Robespierre had begun, and converted 
the government from being defensively, to being essenti- 
ally military ; and by this means extended the system 
to other nations, who are compelled, for their own de- 
fence, to keep up large and expensive militaiy establish- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. Sf 

ments, to the great annoyance of their peaceful subjects, and 
the destruction of many other pursuits, which can only 
thrive under a light or moderate taxation. 

To say what are the virtues of Buonaparte is a matter 
somewhat difficult, though there is hardly one which he did 
not assume before he had secured his authority ; the irasci- 
ble passions have their full sway over him, though he is said 
to be exempt from the lust of concupiscence; his couit is 
not a brothel of debauchery, but it is a den of thieves ; he 
is free from the vices of the body, and therefore more fully 
possessed by those of the mind ; his continence is not a vir- 
tue, but a defect of nature, which, so far from rendering 
him amiable, is, perhaps, the cause of that cold-hearted 
villainy which makes him insensible to mercy or compassion j 
for nothing softens the human heart more than a propensity 
to the female sex, even when carried to excess ; but the maa 
who is inaccessible either to lust or to love, must be hardly 
human ; he must be either above or below the rest of man- 
kind. Gratitude is certainly not one of the Emperor's vir- 
tues, for the three men to whom he is most indebted in the 
world, are now driven from his presence. A truly great 
man is great in every thing ; Buonaparte is great in 
nothing but his ambition : in every thing else he is beneath 
contempt. His cruelty, more savage than that of Bor 
gia or Philip, is a hoiTid mixture of calculation and pas- 
sion, just as interest or revenge happens to prevail : he has 
risen to a throne by the disregard of every human ordinance, 
and seems to stand alone in the world, not so much by the 
dignity of his nature, as by a total want of all those finer 
moral sympathies which attach men to each other. 

Buonaparte is almost the only instance upon record of a 
man being wholly engrossed by one object ; other great men 
have had their moments of weakness, their hours of volup- 
tuous indulgence, which have diverted them from their great 
pursuits, and rendered them assailable to the attacks of their 
enemies ; but the mind of Buonaparte is never turned for 
an instant from the great object of his ambition ; the increase 
and maintenance of his power alone employ his thoughts, 
and engage his undivided attention, and this it is which 
makes him so formidable ; he leaves no hope that he may 
ever be surprised in an error, or that a body enervated by- 
luxury may yield to the attacks of disease or intemperance. 



88 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

The remark, that good sometimes arises out of evil, or 
rather, that what is evil in one light may be good in another, 
may be applied to the situation of this country, arising from 
the menaces of Buonaparte. The state of France, and other 
countries on the continent, has taught us to be content with 
our own, in the search after improvement, to be guided by 
experience rather than trust to uncertain speculations, and 
to estimate duly the many blessings we enjov, which can 
only be increased by gradual advancement. The danger on 
the other hand is, that those governments which have with- 
stood the whirlwind and tempest of the French revolution 
should hold too strongly to their antient abuses, and, think- 
ing themselves secure in their strength, should contemn the 
strength of this people. The true lesson they ought to re- 
ceive from all that is past is, to bear themselves moderately^ 
and to remember that their power is a trust which may be 
resumed, and otherwise confided. 

The sudden elevation of Buonaparte, joined to his origi- 
nal temper, will in a great measure account for the impru- 
dence with which he has thrown away both his own happi- 
ness, and that of the nation. Men raised suddenly from the 
lower ranks to much lesser situations than that of Buona* 
parte, seldom make a good use of their advantages ; they 
retain all the leading ideas of their humble origin, and con- 
sider the power or money they have acquired, to be useful 
to no other purpose than their ov/n gratification. They sel- 
dom possess any enlarged notions of virtue or happiness ; 
and mere gross indulgence, whether their leading passion 
be ambition, avarice, or pleasure, is the sole object of their 
pursuit. Buonaparte, therefore, though superior to other 
men in his talents, and the opportunities that have been af- 
forded him for their display, has his heart still narrowed 
with his original selfishness, and like a merchant who has ar- 
rived at riches by his talents for calculation, remains without 
virtue or humanity. Having arrived at power without one 
amiable quality to reconcile men to his usurpation, he is now 
supported solely by violence, and when he falls, he will fall 
unlamented, even by those who shared his power, his ho- 
nors, or his bounty. On a full review of his character, it 
may safely be pronounced, that his heart is filled with every 
bad passion, while hardly one solitary virtue is to be found 
in their company, and it may safely be pronour.C^d, that he 
resembles none of the great men v/ho have gone before him. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^9 

Francs,^ 
The annual civil list establishment of the First 

Consul, - - - - - - 24,030,000 

His wardrobe, plate, china, the crown jewels 
that he has appropriated to his use, those 
plundered or extorted in Italy, Spain and 

Portugal, 20,000,000 

The private jewels, plate, &c. of Madame Buo- 
naparte, - - - - - - 3,000,000 

Her pin-money, annually, - - - 1,000,000 

For the establishment of Joseph Buonaparte, 

paid at once, 2,000,0vX) 

A yearly pension, - - . - 1,200, 00 J 
An annuity to four relations of Madame J. Buo- 
naparte, - 203,000 

Presents to J. Buonaparte for, his negociations 

at Luneville, Amiens, &c. - , - 1,500,000 
The establishment of Lucien Buonaparte, - 2,000,000 

A yearly pension, ' l,:iOO,000 

His wardrobe, china, plate, pictures, and the 
diamonds that he extorted from Spain and 

Portugal, 4,000,000 

Annuities to the parents and relations of his late 
wife, daughter of an inn-keeper at St. Maxi- 
min, ------- 200,000 

Debts paid in France and Spain, - - 3,000,000 

The establishment of Louis Buonaparte, - 2,000,000 

A yearly pension, 1,200,000 

Debts paid at Berlin, and in other parts of Ger- 
many, in 1800 and 1801, - - - 1,000 OOO 

At his marriage, 600 000 

Ditto, to his wife Mademoiselle Beauhamois, 600,000 

At the birth of her child, - - - 600,000 

For an hotel at Paris, and two estates in the 
country, for the future establishment of Je- 
rome Buonaparte, - , - - 1,500,000 
A yearly pension until married, - - 600,000 
Money deposited in forein banks, in the name 

of Jerome Buonaparte, - - - - 1,000,000 

* J. Frafic IS about tsnp^iKe halfpenny. 



90 REVOLUTIONARY 1 LUTARCfi. 

The First Consul's Sisters. 

Francs. 
1'. Madame Bacchiochi, an establishment, - 1,000,000 
A yearly pension, - - - - - 6^ 000" 
Prv^sents in diamond's, 8vC. - - - 600,000 
To several of her husband's relations, an- 
nuities, 200 OCO 

2. Madame Santa Cruce, an establishment, 1,000.000 

A yearly pension, 6(X),000 

Presents in diamonds, &c. - . - 60 ),000 

Annuities to two of her husband's relations, 100,000 

5i Madame Murat, an establishment, - - 1,000,000 

A yearly pension, ----- 600,000 

Presents in diamonds, &c. - - - 600,000 

-To five of her husband's relations, annuities, 200,000 

4. Madame Le Clerc, an establishment, - 1,000,000 

A yearly pension, - - - - 600,000 

Presents in diamonds, Sec. - - - 600,000 

Ditto for going to St. Domingo, - 500,000 

To some of her husband's relations, annuities, 300,000- 
To Madame Buonaparte, the Consul's mother, 

an establishment, - - - ^ 2,000,000 

A yearly pension, - - - . - 1,000,000 

Presents, &c. - - - - - 600,000 

(As she lives mostly with the Consul, she distri- 
butes her pension among her other children.) 
The Consul's uncle, the Archbishop of Lyons, 

an annuity, - - - - - - 600,000 

For an establishment, - - - - 500*,00o 

To pay for a library, - - - - - 300,000 

To eight poor cousins, and twels'e more distant 

relations of the Consul, annuities, - - 500,000 
Toa butcher, a second cousin of the Consul, 

paid on condition of his not leaving Corsica, 300,000 
Annuities to his wife and children, on the same 

condition, ----- . 50,000 

To young Beauharnois, an annuity, - - 6(X),C00 
A present at his sister's marriage, - - 300,000 
An hotel and an estate for his future establish- 
ment, 6,000,000 

Paid lor his debts, 1,2000,000 

To Madame La Pageric (Madame Buonaparte's 

mother) for an establishment, . - - 1,000,000 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. m 

Francs, 
A yearly pension, - - - - 600,000 

To six of her relations, annuities, - - 500,009 

'i'o fifty private spies of the First Consul, yearly, 300,000 
Barrerc's name is among them ; but he is, be- 
sides, in another part of the Livre Kouge, a 
Censor over the Press, with a stipend of 
12,000 francs. Pensions to 406 other persons, 
either distant relations of the Buonaparte fa- 
m ly, or favorites ; amongst others, Ruostan, 
the favourite Mameluke, of 24,000 francs j 
six women, ruined by Lucie«, of 3,000 francs 
each ; Madame Louis's dancing- master, of 
3,000 francs, &c. &c. - - - - 5,000,000 

Secret service money, among the household 
troops and in the interior of the castles of St. 
Cloud and the Thuilleries, annually, - - 1,500,000 
The Second Consul, yearly, - - - 2,-00,000 

To his relations, do. - - - - - 200,000 

The Third Consul, do 1,500,000 

To his children, do. - - . . 300,003 

To other relations, do. - - - - 2X>,000 

[private.] 
secret expence3 of the first consuju 
year viii. 
To the members of the Council of Ancients, in 

Brumaire, year viii. - - ^ - 1,500,000 

To do. of the Council of Five Hundred, do- 3,000,0 .0 
To the Directorial Guard, do, - - 1,000,000 

To General Le F<ivre, for the military at and 

near Paris, 2,500,000 

To the disposal of Fouche. ... 1,200,000 

The Constitutional Committee, - - - 2,000,000 
For accelerating the acceptation of the Consti- 
tution, with addresses, &c. - - _ 6,000,000 
The army of the West, during the negociation 

with the Royalists, - - - . 3,500,000 

For.tlie pacification of the Royalists, - 2,400,000 

To the army in Switzerland, - - - 1 ,200,000 

To the army in Germany, - - - . 2,ooo,ooo 
Do. on the War, and in Liguria, - - l,coo,ooo 

Do. in Egypt (Ventose) - - , - l,5oo,ooo 

Do. of Reserve (Germinal) - - - 6co,ooo 



9^ 



REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 



Francs. 
To Adjutant Duroc at Berlin, - ™ - 2,ooo,ooo 
To Citizen Otto in England, - - - 1, 000,000 
Do. for the inspections over the Bourbons, - loo,ooo 
For do. do. in Poland and Holstein, - - loo, 000 
For do. do. and the army of Conde, - 2oo,ooo 
Remitted to Madame Bonoeille, for secret ser- 
vices in Russia, - - - , , 800,000 
To the different members of the Senate, - 600,000 
Do. of the Legislative Corps, - - - 600,000 
Do. of the Tribunate, - - - . 5oo,oob 
To twenty-five generals, . - - - 1,800,000 
Distributed at Brest, - - - - l,2oo,ooo 
Do. at Toulon, - - - . . 600,000 
Remitted to private agent at Vienna in Floreal 

and Fructidor, ----- 3,ooo,oco 
New remittances to the army of Egypt on ac- 
count of some captures by the English, - l,2oo,ooo 
To Generals Menou and D'Estaign, - 1,000,000 

YEAR IX. 

To Louis Buonaparte at Berlin (Frimaire) - 1 ,500,000 

Do. at Konigsberg and Dantzig, for Russia, 3, 000, 000 
For private information at the armies of Moreau 

and Angereau, ^ ^ , - - l,2oo,ooo 

Do. at the army of Interior, - - - 600,000 

Do. at do, against Portugal, - - - 300,000 

Do. at do. in Italy, Switzerland, and Holland, 300,000 

To some leading members of the Senate, - 500,000 

Do. of the Legislative Body, - - , 3oo,ooo 

Do. of the Tribunate, - - - - 200,000 

Remitted to Adjutant Lauriston at Copenhagen 

(Germinal) ------ 600,000 

Do. to Adjutant Duroc at St. Petersburgh, in 

Prairial, ------ 3,000,000 

Do. to Citizen Otto in England, - - 1, 200,000 

Do. to General Menou, - - - - 6o©,ooo 

For the inspections over the Bourbons in Eng- 
land, Poland, and Germany, - - 600,000 
Among the naval armies at Brest and Toulon, 

for secret information, - - - - 3oo^ooo 

To sixteen generals, - - - - 800,000 

for secret influence at the Military Special Tri- 

l>upals, - P * «. ^ - y 500,009 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



93 



YEAR X. Francs, 

For the return of some bishops and priests, 1,600,000 

The Consulta at Lyons, - - - - 4,000,000 
To some leading Members of the Senate, on 

the motion of the Consulate for life, - - 800,000 
Do. -------- 700,000 

Do. of the Council of State, do. - - 600,000 

Do. of the Legislative Body, do. - - 500,000 

Do. of the Tribunate, do. - - - 500,000 

To the different Prefects, do. - - - 12,ooo,ooo 
To fifty generals, do. - - - - 3,5oo,ooo 

To the different armies, do. ' - - - 3, 000,000 
To the navy at Brest and Toulon, do. - 600,000 

For accelerating the votes and proposing ad- 

dreses at Paris, to Fouche and Dubois, - 3oo,ooo 
Do. in the departments, - - - - 0,000,000 
For the inspection over the Bourbons, - 600,000 

Remitted to Citizen Otto, - - - - 5oo,ooo 
For the private inspection over the ministers 

and at their offices, - - - - 1 00,000 

Among the military at Paris, per General Junot, loo,ooo 
Do. in the departments, - - - - 4,000,000 

To prove with what indifference and profusion millions 
are squandered away, and with what contempt the squander- 
ed millions are accounted for, the budget presented to the Le- 
gislative Body at its last meetings in February 1803, and pub- 
lished in the offcial Moniteur^ contains the following concise 
narration, how nearly three millions sterling have been ex« 
p ended. 

YEAR IX. 

32 millions expended in negociations (pour frais des nego* 
liations.) year x. 

10 millions unforeseen expences (depences imprevues.) 

15,5o5,ooo francs expended in negociations (pour frais des 
negotiations.) 

Let those who complain of the show and prodigality of 
princes, who libel the expences attending monarchical go^ 
vernments, who praise the simplicity and economy of re- 
publican administrators ; who speak of the absurdity' of he- 
reditary sovereignty, and of the advantage of electing rulers : 
let them read the above authentic extract, and then say what 
France has gained by exchanging an ancient monarchy for a 
fashionable commonwealth — a Bourbon for a Buonaparte, 



94 REVOLU riONARY PLUTARCH. 

People who have not resided for some time in revolution- 
ary France can form no idea of the disorder that reigns in 
her finances, of the uncertainty and insecurity of property, 
of the total want of confid'ence, of the scarcity of money, of 
the immorality and crimes of her government, and of the 
vices and slavery of her inhabitants. Of France it may truly 
•l^e said, for these last eleven years, that 

Her slaroes are soldiers^ and her soldiers slaves. 
Her knaves are rulers^ and her rulers knaves. 

And, in fact, any upstart in place or in afRuence, who is 
even notoriously known to have committed murders and as- 
sassinations, to have intrigued, robbed, betrayed or plundered 
ever so much, is respected as an irreproachable character. 
Many good and innocent persons have, besides, since the 
Revolution, been suspected, accused, judged and condemn- 
ed by former factions as criminah ; this has introduced a 
confusion in ideas, advantageous to those really guilty and 
deserving of punishment ; the public opinion is therefore al- 
'ways uncertain and hesitating about the innocence or guilt 
of the accused. But the immoral indifference and cowardly 
baseness of the French republicans would be incredible, were 
it not manifest, that notwithstanding they are convinced of 
the enormous crimes, both of the First Consul and most of 
his senators, of his counsellors of state, Sec. crimes that, un^- 
der a regular government, and in a country where honour, 
morality and religion were revered, would long ago have 
forced them to descend from power, and to renounce their 
r-ank and riches for a gibbet, the galleys, or a prison ; — they 
continue to submit to Buonaparte as they did to Robespierre, 
and speak of xht great virtues of the former in 1803, as 
they did of the unparalleled humanity of the latter in 
1793. On all others, as well as on the present king of fac- 
tion, the prostitution of praise, and every degree of enco- 
miastic veneration, have been bestowed. Terms peculiar to 
the adoration and worship of the Supreme Being have been 
applied to Marat and Robespierre, as well as to Buonaparte ; 
wretches, all, whom it was the reproach of humanity to 
number among men, and whom nothing but riches and power, 
fear or meanness, prevented those who published or pro- 
claimed their deification from hunting into the toils of jus- 
tice, as disturbers of the peace of nations. 

In a pamphlet called '' La Sainte Famille," the following 
calculation is made and published, of the number of per- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^5 

uons who had perished by the commands of Napoleone Buo-* 
naparte, before he was firmly seated upon the republican 
throne of France as a First ConsuL 

In December 1793, Brutus Buonaparte ccmimanded the 
cannons and bayonets which killed, or rather murdered, 
twelve hundred men, women, and children, at Toulon. In 
October 1795, eight thcusand men, wcnlen, and children, 
were butchered in the streets of Paris, by Earras, Buona- 
parte, and his satellites. During the campaigns of 1796 
and 1797, in Italy and Carinthia, according to th^ cfiicial 
report in the war-office, twentv-six thoua.md four hundred 
and sixty French citizens were killed by the enemy on the 
fs-dds of battle, and nine thousand three hundred and fift}'- 
two perished in the hospitals: of v^hom the author of the 
pamphlet supposes at least three thousand to have been stran- 
gled^ pQisoned, or hurled alhc^ by the orders of Buonaparte, 
after having been dangerously v/cHmded in combating for this 
atrocious general. During the same campaign, according 
to Berthier's, and other generals' reports, upwards of forty- 
four thousand enemies in arms were killed, besides fourteen: 
thousand two hundred disarmed inhabitants, men, women,- 
and children, who perished in cities, towns, and villages 
given up to pillage, taken by storm, pHt under military exe- 
cution, or who were stabbed and shot, or burned alive as 
insurgents, as refractory, or as fanatics. 

Buonaparte's expedition to Egypt and to S^ria, and the 
battle of Aboukir, cost the lives of twenty-two thousand- 
Frenchmen, forty thousand inhabitants i-n Egypt, and six- 
thousand in Syria ; and, according to Menou's account, 
thirty-six thousand lurks and English were killed by the 
republicans or by the climate. (The number of Frenchmen 
poisoned in the hospitals by the orders of Ali Buonaparte, 
Menou does not mention.)- During the campaign of 1-800, 
in Italy, Switzerland, ancl Germany, and' until the Peace of 
Luneviile ensured Bouonaparte's usurpation, twenty-six- 
thousund eight hundred Frenchmen died on the field uf bat- 
tle, or in the hospitals ; and according to Morcau's, Ber- 
thier's, Massena's, and Mac.dcnalds accounts, more than 
double that number of enemies perished in the same cam- 
paigns. And thus upwards of three hundred thousand livs:> 
nave been sacrificed to procure Buonaparte a rr.nk and a 
power, of which he makes no other use than to cor.fer nu 
•rganised misery and slavery on mankind, by a CQnt;i.i;;ii 



95 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARGH. 

oppression, plunder and tyranny ; by his religious and poli- 
tical hypocrisy, as much as by his revolutionary plots, pre« 
tensions, intrigues, and agitations. 

Thanks to the courageous, loyal, and able historian, Sir 
Robert Wilson, who relating in a style equally pure, nervous, 
elevated, and clear, incontrovertible facts, has exposed the 
hitherto unheard of, or disbelieved, atrocities of Napoleone 
Buonaparte, and made the world more intimately acquaint- 
ed with the principles and conduct of this fortunate, but mis- 
conceived man, and proved, that neither command nor afflu- 
ence, neither authority nor prosperity, neither a throne nor 
popularity, " can make a villain great, "* Success has some- 
times meliorated the sanguinary characters of former usurp- 
ers. The Emperor Augustus was very different from the 
Triumvir Octavius ; but the tyranny and ferocity of Buo- 
naparte increases with his prosperity ; and the fortunate 
First Consul never ceases to exhibit the cruel character of 
the adventurer and terrorist Brutus Buonaparte at Toulon of 
1793, of the jacobin and murderer Barras Buonaparte at 
Paris of 1795, and of the poisoner and butcher, Ali Buon- 
aparte, at Jaffa of 1799. 

Future ages, more happy, more independent, and more 
impartial, will do the British Nation that justice, and bestow 
on it that admiration, whkh, terrified by revolutionary 
threats, and gained over by regicide indemnities, some co- 
temporaries have refused ; and draw an honourable conclu- 
sion concerning the spirit, patriotism, and morality of mo- 
dern Britons, from the irreconcileable hatred with which 
they have been dstinguished by all French rebels and regi- 
cides, of all factions, of all parties, and of all constitu- 
tions ; by the Brissot, Danton, Marat, and Robespierre of 
the year one, as well as by the Talleyrand, Roederer, Fou- 
che, and Bounaparte, of the year twelve. 

As to Napoleone Buonaparte, either considered as a pow- 
erful usurper, or as a private citizen, either as a warrior, or 
as a politician, it has before been justly said, "' That success 
may, for inscrutable purposes, continue to attend him. Ab- 
ject senates may decree ttim a throne, or the pantheon ; but 
history shall renier injured hum inity justice, and an indig- 
nant posterity inscribe on his cenotaph : 
^^ Ille venena Colc/iica, 
£t quicquid iisqiiam concipiiiir n^fas 
Tractavit,^ 



97 



JOSEPHINE BUONAPARTE, 

EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH. 

Ah ! «i Von connoissait Je n^ant des grandeurs j 

Leurs tristes vanit^s, leurs fantomes trompeurs, 
Qu'on en detesteroit le brillant esclavage ! ! ! 

Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie is not the first per- 
son of her isex in Prance, whom, from a subject, fortune 
has elevated to be the consort of a sovereign. King Ca- 
simir of Poland, and Louis XIV". of France, were both 
married to French gentlewomen, who had, however, the 
modesty and prudence not to expose to derision, danger, 
or contempt, that grandeur which had descended from its 
native dignity to gratify an unbecoming and impolitic 
passion. And, indeed, had Madame de Maintenon been 
so ambitious as to desire the publicity of those sa- 
cred ti^s which united her lawfully to Louis XIV. not- 
withstanding the unlimited power of this king, vi'hich 
the French people had so long and so quietly obeyed and 
respected, it is very probable that a civil war w^ould have 
been the consequence. Any prince of the blood, who 
had then appealed to the honour of his countrymen for 
avenging the outrage olfered himself, his ancestors, and 
the throne, by such an act, would have been sure of pu- 
inerous adherents, not only among the nobility but among 
the inferior classes. Frenchmen, in the end of the seven- 
teenth century, were notso depraved and unprincipled as 
their descendants have shewn themselves in the be- 
ginning of the nineteenth. Men who can submit lo salute f it #^ 
a guilty Corsican adventurer their em^^eror, and to re- ' 
main his slaves;, could reasonably have po objection to 
bow as subjects to his worthy partner, a Creole impress, 
though she had previously been by turns the harlot of 
courtiers and of regicides, prostituting herself in the bou- 
doirs of Versailles, or rioting in vice and debauchery in 
ithe dens of a committee of public safety, or in the anti- 
chambers of an executive directory. 
Jjisephiue la Pagerie was married «\t tlteage of twenty- 

N 



98 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

two to Viscount Alexander de Beauharnois, then second 
major in a regiment of infantry; a rank wliich he owed, 
not to his military capacity, but to his assiduity at Ver- 
sailles, in the anti-chambers of favourites and ministers ; 
and to his reputation among the courtiers, of being an 
agreeable and able dancer. The marriage of the rich 
Mademoiselle le Pagerie with the poor Viscount de Beau- 
harnois was concluded with love and affection on one 
part, and from interest and necessity on the other ; be- 
cause de Beauharnois was both in debt, and some years 
younger than his wife. Both were born at Martinique, 
and educated in France; and both descended from noble 
but obscure or reduced families, who had transplanted 
themselves to the West Indies, in expectation of making 
in the colonies a fortune, of which they had neither a 
prospect nor a hope in their mother country. 

Notwithstanding that Monsieur and Madame de Beau- 
harnois were, soon after their marriage, introduced at 
court, and presented to the king and to the royal family, 
yet their usual society chiefly consisted of persons who, 
like themselves, possessed some property, no claim to 
eminence, but great envy towards those who with riches 
united distinction and favour. Both sexes of this society 
were immoral citizens, ambitious and dangerous intriguers, 
and the principal though indirect plotters and conspira- 
tors both against the throne and the altar, against the pri- 
vileges of the nobility and clergy, as well as against the 
happiness and tranquillity of Frenchmen in general. 
Talleyrand, Charles and Alexander La Methe, Beaumetz, 
La Tour Maubeuge, Sillery, and Flahault, were some of 
the persons most visited by Madame de Beauharnois and 
her husband ; characters who have, with their ladies, more 
or less figured in the French revolutionary annals, and 
prepared, by their atheistical, disaffected, and seditious 
conversations and writings, the subversion of the monar- 
chical government, and the wretchedness of France and 
Europe. They were known/ro«c/e«7\sas the French call- 
ed them ; or, what is the same, sticklers against the go- 
vernment, without cause or reason, as well as without 
shame, gratitude, duty, or policy. Among these coteries 
of the second class, or petty nobility, vice walked bare- 
faced, and the sacred ties of matrimony were less respect- 
ed than in thefrst class, otherwise reported, or rather ca- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 99 

iumniated, as the most debauched and unprincipled ; 
though a regard to their names, and to the known virtu- 
ous character of Louis XVL forced many of them at least 
to save the appearance of virtue, or to be discreet in their 
vices, and to avoid all scandal and publicity, as the only 
means of preserving the good opinion and favour of their 
prince. This was not the case with the familiar company 
of Monsieur and Madame de Beauharnois : burning with 
desire to become notorious, their constant and criminal 
emulation was to obtain an infamous applause, to be fa- 
shionable in the immoral French capital, and to gain re- 
nown by making the public acquainted with their reci- 
procal intrigues, their mutual inlidelities, and their equal 
refinements in vice and debauchery. The gallants of Ma- 
dame de Beauharnois were therefore as numerous as they 
were notorious ; and her vanity was no doubt flattered, 
at hearing that her amours were the common topic of 
conversation not only at Versailles, but at Paris, in the 
theatres, as well as in the coffee-houses. In March 1789, 
at the hotel of the Countess de F — , (the bonne amie of 
Talleyrand) Madame de Beauharnois said, in the large 
circle of ladies and gentlemen assembled there, and in 
the presence of Mr. Beauharnois, that, of her several 
pregnancies, she could not reproach her husband with any, 
except the first, which ended in a miscarriage. This sally 
was heard, commended, and envied by all the ladies pre- 
sent; and the next day trumpeted about Paris by the gen- 
tlemen, and laughed at or admired every where. A few 
days afterwards, when Madame de Beauharnois appeared 
in her box at the opera, she was saluted with the repeat- 
ed applauses of the good and virtuous Parisians, who then 
were preparing the moral regener^ttion of France, of 
Europe, and of the world. 

Mr. de Beauharnois had about this period been chosen, 
by the nobility of the bailiwick of Blois, a deputy to the 
States-General. Dazzled by this honour, and by the flat- 
tery which his friends paid to the charms of his wife and 
to the good dinners of her cook, and convinced of his own 
superiority in dancing, he thought himself a man of con- 
sequence ; and, to prove himself such, determined, with 
a degree of impudevice, as dishonourable as ineffectual, \\\ 
gratitude for all the favours and benefactions that he had 
received from the generous bounty of Louis XVI. to de-p 



'A 



100 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

claim, and to declare his implacable enmity to this Sove- 
reign and lo the Roj^al family. But, in the assembly of 
the States-General, afterwards called the National Assem*- 
bly, when he ascended the tribune, he read his treacherous 
S|)eeches Avith an ostentation which his chilling and un- 
f<?eling voice made ridiculous; and the orator was as con- 
temptible as the traitor was detestable. His accomplices 
La Fayette and La Methe, however, caused him, notwith- 
standing his Want of abilities, to be elected, in June 1791, 
president of this National Assembly; and as such, he 
signed the proclamation addressed to the French people, 
when Louis XVI. was arrested at Varennes. In October 
of the same year, he made his peace with the court, was 
promoted to the rank of adjutant-general, and served as 
such under General Biron when the French troops, in 
April, 1793, were routed nearMons. 

Beauharnois was the friend of La Fayette as long as he 
AVas popular; but afterwards joined his enemy and suc- 
cessor in popularity, Dumourier; and When the latter 
was proscribed, he courted Custine, whom, when pro- 
scribed also in his turn, he succeeded in the command 
over the army of the Rhine ; which place he, contrary to 
tUe wishes of the jacobins, desired to resign, but was forc- 
ed to occupy until August 1793, when the representatives 
of the people suspended him from all functions, and or- 
dered hilt) to retire about twenty leagues from the fron- 
tiers. He was soon afterwards, with his wife, arrested as 
suspected persons; and on the 23d of July, 1794, he was 
sent to the guillotine, as an accomplice in the imaginary 
conspiracy of the prisons. The day before his execution 
he wrote a long letter to his wife, in which he recommend- 
ed to her, in the true republican style, her children ; and 
Jn particular 7iot io neglect to re-estahUsh his inemori/ and 
reputation, by proving " that ins whole life had been 
** consecrated to serve liberty and equality y This revolu- 
tionary hypocrisy of a man who had been twenty years a 
courtier, and only four a patriot, will not seem surprising, 
when it is considered that at this time liberty and equality- 
were very fashionable words in republican France, and 
Mr. de Beauharnois no doubt intended to die as he had 
lived, a fashionable man. It is said, however, that when 
be ascended the scaffold of the guillotine, he exclaimed, 
*' Jf I had served my King with the same Zealand fidelity 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 101 

as I have done his murderers^ he would have rewarded me 
in a different manner^* It is a consolation to proscribed 
and suffering loyalty, and an evidence that providence 
does not always permit successful crime to remain unpu- 
nished, that most of the nobles who revolted against their 
lawful Sovereign have either perished by the hands of 
their sovereign people, or what is worse, and more pain- 
ful both to real patriots and to patriotic intriguers, are 
forced to live the abject slaves of the vilest of all tyrants, 
and to endure, under a foreign usurper, a bondage as 
dishonourable as oppressive, after sacrificing the real li- 
berty which they enjoyed und€r the best of all the French 
kings. 

During the revolutionary career of General Beauhar- 
iiois, his wife lost many of her former friends; either by 
emigration, as the two brothers La Methe ; by proscrip- 
tion, as Talleyrand and La Fayette ; or by the guillotine, 
as Barnave, Sillery, and Flahault. It was, therefore, when 
at Strasburgh in July, 1793, her intention to emigrate ; 
which her husband prevented, however, by sending her 
back to Paris ; where, soon after, she, like him, was im- 
mured ; but not in the same prison. 

It has been said, and believed every where, that in 1794, 
to save her life, Madame de Beauharnois threw herself 
into the arms of one of the indirect murderers both of 
her husband and of her king ; and that she had no choice 
left but the impure embraces of the regicide Barras, or 
death from the republican guillotine. That it was not 
from necessity, however, but from a vicious habit and 
scandalous perversity, that she began to intrigue with 
Barras, was at the time well known at Paris, and may 
easily be proved in London. General Beauharnois was 
beheaded on the 23d of July 1794, five days before the 
death of Robespierre, and six days before the guillotine 
ceased to kill en masse. In the 25th number of Fouquier 
Thionville's printed lists {counting from the day which 
made her a widow) Madame de Beauharnois's name was 
inscribed; and had not Robespierre perished, she would 
certainly have ascended the scaffold in her turn ; and Bar- 
ras was the last of all the conventional regicides who 
could have saved her, being himself marked our upon an 
anterior list, as one of Robespierre's first victims. Be- 
sides, when Madame de Beauharnois, on the 24th of 



102 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Thermidor, or l^ith of August 1T94, recovered her liberty, 
she was released, not by Barras, but by the Parisian 
butcher and representative of the French people, the re- 
gicide Legendre, who Jdndly protected her for some time 
in his house, where she made acquaintance both with 
Madame I'allien and with 'Barras, w^ho, to the great dis- 
appointment of Legendre, in September of the same year, 
caused the .seals to be taken oi\ her house in the Rlie de 
Victoires; and to protect her in his turn, he occupied an 
apartment in her house, until he exchanged it in October 
1795, for the Palace of Luxembourg, and procured her, 
in his accomplice Napoleone Buonaparte, a husband to 
cover the embarrassed state to which she was at that pe- 
riod reduced by her intimacy and connection with him as 
her lover. 

All those ladies of noble families in France, whose li- 
centiousness got the better of their duty during the revo- 
lution (and to the honour of the sex they are not many) 
have made their pretended dangers an apology for their 
real ijuilt. Danger was the excuse of Madame de Fon- 
tenay, for marrying the regicide Septembrizer Tallien ; 
of the Duchess of Fieury, for divorcing herself to inarry 
a gamester; of the Marchioness of Bourdemont, for mar- 
rying her coachman; and of Madame de Beauharnois, for 
living in adultery with the married jacobin Barras. But 
the revolutionary crimes of the revolutionary factions are 
manifest, public, and numerous enough, without any aug- 
mentation from libertinism to extenuate private corrup- 
tion ; and if those ladies who, like the Princess of Monaco, 
the Duchess of Biron, and the Marchioness de St. Luc, 
preferred death to infamy, deserve the warmest admira- 
tion ; those who forget themselves, when surrounded by 
the examples the martyrs of loyalty and religion, and with 
the scaffolds of virtue and innocence, and who, in those 
dreadful days gave loose to their vile passions, deserve to 
be exhibited both as a simme to themselves, and as a war- 
ning to others whom future revolutions may tempt to 
future imitation and degradation. 

While Madame de Beauharnois thus, in company with 
Barras, consoled herself for the loss of her husband ; Ma- 
dame Tallien, a beautiful woman, but whose character is 
as depraved as her form is perfect, was the then fa- 
jihionable idol of the gay, corrupt, and giddy Parisians. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^ 103 

These two female friends of Barras soon became rivals in 
the Scandalous Chronicles, in which were recorded their 
mutual efforts to outshine each other; to make conquests, 
and to desert the conquered ; to change lovers, as they 
changed their clothes; and to exhibit at the theatres, ia 
the public walks and assemblies, their new and motley 
suitors, as impudently as their more-than-half-naked per- 
sons. 

During the years 1705 and 1790, Madame Tallien al- 
ways had the precedence in the Parisian popularity and 
favour, and was the most fashionable idol of those times. 
Madame Beauharnois gained no applause or approbation 
when her second marriage was known. Her choice, Na- 
poleone Buonaparte, was the detestation and abhorrence 
of all Paris, where he, two months before, had made so 
many widows and orphans; and even his hrilUant cam- 
paign of 179(5, in Italy, caused the Parisians to shudder 
at the very name of the victor Buonaparte, whom they 
always remembered and regarded as a murderer. 

By the peace of Campo Formio, or rather by the revo- 
lution of the 18th Fructidor, or 4th of September 1797, 
Buonaparte silenced, without reconciling, his enemies. 
The flatterers of his fortune, however, caused his wife to 
share in his triumph, and forced Madame Tallien to re- 
nounce, or at least to admit a partner upon, the throne of 
fashion, which for two years she had occupied without 
any rival ; and though Madame Napoleone [ci-devant de 
Beauharnois) was advanced in years, and never had been 
a beauty, the Notre Dame des Victoires, as the military 
called her, was more the talk of the day, than Notre 
Dame de Septembre, as the royalists had styled Madame 
Tallien, on account of her marriage with a regicide, who 
was, besides, a Septembrizer. 

When Buonaparte sailed for Egypt, in May 1798, he 
left his wife in greater affluence than he had found her in 
1795 : in distress at that period himself, he had married 
her for her poverty, and not from any attachment to her 
person. The amiable and insinuating manners of Ma- 
dame Napoleone, however, made some impression upon 
the ^nindof an unfeeling, cruel, and ambitious man, who, 
no doubt, took that for love which could only be vanity 
or interest ; and he left his wife, if his own letters are to 
be believed, with regret, or probably with fear that more 



a04 ^ REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

riches, more notoriety, and more means to attract the at- 
tention of the public, would make an already vain and 
dissolute character still more criminal. Buonaparte was 
not mistaken. According to the pamphlet called " La 
Sainte Famille," his mother's letters overtook him at 
Malta, with information, " that his wife, the same day 
that she received information of his departure from Tou- 
lon, had left Paris for Grosbois, and settled herself with 
her former protector Barras; who had caused great com- 
plaint, and attached great scandal to the other Directors, 
by having deserted his duty and the Luxembourg for his 
scenes of debauchery at Grosbois, where, besides several 
noted courtezans, were Madame Tallien, Madame Napo- 
leone Buonaparte, Madame Killmain, Madame Guidal, 
Madame Grand, General Verdier, Talleyrand, &c. &c. all 
persons whose examples it was well known might ruin 
the morals of a republic even more vicious than the 
French. It was in consequence of this maternal informa- 
tion, that Napoleone wrote, on the 25th of July, 1798, a 
letter from Cairo to his brother Joseph ; in which he said, 
" I have many domestic troubles and family vexations ; 
the veil is entirely withdrawn : you alone remain to me 
upon earth ; your friendship is very dear to me: nothing 
is wanting to make me a complete misanthrope, hut that I 
should lose you, or that you should betray me. Such is 
rny melancholy situation ! / possess all possible sentiments 
for this same person, whilst another reigns in her heart / 
You understand what I mean." The tender-hearted, 
humane, unambitious Napoleone to become a misan- 
thrope, because his worthy wife intrigued with the same 
regicide with whom she lived in open adultery at the 
time when he married her ! he, who with sang froid, if 
not with pleasure, had commanded the murder, poisqn- 
ing, &c. of so many thousand individuals of both sex^s, 
of all ages! this Corsican hypocrisy probably could not 
dupe even his so partial Corsican brother. A man at the 
head of forty thousand armed banditti, employed in plun- 
dering the country and butchering the subjects of a 
friendly and allied power, must make a very novel and 
curious misanthrope indeed ! 

After the issue of the battle of Aboukir became known 
in Trance, the policy of Barras got the better of his 
amour; and, following the example and conduct of the 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^ 105 

other directors, he rather shunned than courted the com- 
pany of a lady whose husband, by his absurd imprudent 
orders to the French admiral, had caused the destruction 
o[ more than half the remaining French navy : which 
great national loss excited a general clamour and discon- 
tent all over France. Even the son of the Dhector Rev\^- 
bell, who had long been dying of love for Mademoiselle 
Fanny de Beauharnois (the daughter of Madame Napo- 
leone during her first marriage), and to whom he was be- 
trothed, broke off a match which Lord Nelson's victory 
had made ominous. To augment Madame Napoleon's 
chagrin and humiliation, her former defeated rival, Ma- 
dame Tallien, again usurped and assumed the reign of 
fashion ; was again followed at Tivoli, at Frescati, and in 
other public walks or gardens; was again exclusively ad- 
mired at the directorial and ministerial assemblies; and 
was again applauded at the opera and in the Theatre de 
Feydeaux; again her pictures were exposed in the Palais 
Royal and in the Riie St. Honore ; and again her beauty 
was sung in the Boulevards, and at the Theatre de Vau- 
deville. To console herself for so many misfortunes, 
which the troublesome visits of her own and her hus- 
band's creditors did not diminish, Madame Napoleone 
resigned the pleasures and delicious pretensions of her 
boudoirs, for the deceitful golden prospect of the gaming 
table, and for the petites sou pees of the gamester, where 
Burgundy and Champagne made her often forget, \\\i\i 
herself, both Barras and Napoleone, and the rouleaus of 
Louis-d'ors of which an unkind fortune had deprived her. 
In the spring of 1799, Madame Napoleone was reduced 
to such distress, that not only the diamonds and jewels 
which her Napoleone had collected for her in Italy were 
in the hands of pawnbrokers and usurers, but an execution 
in lier house was only prevented by tkc then anonymous 
pecuniary assistance of General Moreau. If the Scanda- 
lous Chronicle be to be believed, and the reports in the 
Luxembourg circles were true, Madame Napoleone tried 
all sorts of expedients to extricate herself from her diffi- 
culties ; and even to raise succours for her present wants 
and extravagance, upon the ruins of her former attractive^ 
but now faded charms. 

When the spoiled child of fortune, Napoleone Buon??' 

O ^ 



loa REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

parte, from an infamous deserter became a powerful First 
Consul ; and when victory and the peace of Luneville and 
of Amiens had respected the claims of his usurpations, 
Madame Napoleone had not to fear any rival upon the 
throne of fashion, more than her husband had upon the 
republican throne of France. It was now, therefore, no 
longer a question about the petty intrigues of the petty 
boudoirs, of the petty cabals of the petty minor beauties, 
such as Madame Tallien, Madame Recamier, Madame 
Marmont : the First Consul had decreed, " that Madame 
Napoleone, in the castle of queens.. ..in the apartment of 
queens....with the treasures of queens....and with vices and 
vanity above all queens....should play in a decent manner 
all the parts of a queen." To begin this task, all former 
familiar acquaintances were to be set aside, thereby con- 
vincing the republican world, that at the age of forty-six 
Madame Napoleone was born to be a queen, to give splen- 
dour to the throne of a queen, and to do honour to the 
rank of a queen. Madame Tallien therefore received, 
through the prefect of the palace, Duroc, orders not to 
appear any longer at the castle of the Thuilleries; Ma- 
dame Napoleone not being able to endure the presence of 
a woman who had two children during her husband's ab- 
sence; any more than the First Consul, who had been a 
poisOT^r and Septembrizer only at Jafia, could suffer the 
fraternity of his friend Tallien, who had been a regicide 
and Septembrizer only at Paris, 

All old debts and demands of mone}^ all ancient preten- 
sions to familiarity, and all public complaints for injury, 
neglect, or ingratitude, were privately settled by Citizen 
Fouch^, in the Temple at Paris, or, by his satellites, in the 
wilds of Cayenne. 

This done, it yet remained for her to be instructed in 
the etiquette of queens and of courts; for Madame Napo- 
leone had only been four times in her life at the Court pf 
Versailles, and not above an hour each time. Napoleone 
himself had now regular lessons from the actor Talma, to 
declaim and talk hke a king ; from Vestris, to salute and 
dance like a king; from Benezeth, to eat and drink like a 
king ; from Talleyrand, to confer and negotiate like a 
king ; and from Segur, to smile, to sneeze, and to sneer 
like a king. To instruct Madame Napoleone, after long 
consultation with Madame Genlis, and with Madame 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 107 

Stael, all the former court ladies who escaped the repub- 
lican guillotine were put in a state of requisition : but, to 
his great disappointment,hearing at the Thuilleries the con- 
tinuance of the language of the Rue des Victou'es, the First 
Consul discovered that those ladies had conspired to make 
his spouse a ridiculous gossip, instead of an amiable and 
elegant queen. After ordering these female conspirators 
thirty leagues from the Thuilleries, the faithful servant of 
all work, Fouche, was again applied to, and, by the activity 
of his agents of police, alias spies, found out a lady, whose 
patriotism to serve the cause of the Revolution, or, what 
is the same, the cause of Buonaparte, could not be doubt- 
ed. Madame Campan had, at the beginning of the Revo- 
lution, a place as chamber-maid to the late queen of France; 
which she lost in June 1791, as a person more than sus- 
pected of having given La Fayette and his accomplices 
information concerning the preparations of Louis XVI. 
and Maria Antoinette for their unfortunate journey to Ya- 
rennes. Since that period, Madame Campan had resided 
at Versailles, where she kept a republican boarding-school, 
in which the Sunday of the Christians tiad given way to 
the revolutionary decade ; and under her care Mademoiselle 
Fanny de Beauharnois had been educated for some time. 
The lessons of Madame Campan had a wonderful effect 
upon the superannuated genius, manners, and allureniftts 
of the superannuated person of Madame Napoleone, who, 
to the visible satisfaction of her Consular husband, was 
in a short time as accomplished a queen as he was a king. 
In the French republic of equality, to be presented to 
this republican queen, a certificate of presentation at the 
court of his own sovereign, was as indispensable for a fo- 
reigner ; as it was for-him in the French republic of liberty, 
if he wished to avoid imprisonment, or interruption on the 
high roads or in the streets, to be always provided with a 
pass in his pocket. The duty, discretion, and judgment of 
the foreign diplomatic agents were never confided in ; cer- 
tificates and passes must be produced, inspected, revised, 
and approved at the office of Talleyrand, at the prefecture 
over the palace, as well as at the prefecture over the po- 
lice, before the drawing room of Madame Napoleone could 
be entered. With such severity was this regulation en- 
forced, that when the agents from the Imperial cities, 
Hamburgh, Bremen, Lubeck, Frankfort, and Nuremberg, 



108 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

demanded to bow before Madame Napoleone, tbey wer5 
not admitted till a whole decade bad passed in consulta- 
tions and deliberations: an express was sent to Versailles 
for Madame Campan, and to the Theatre Fran^ais for Ma- 
dame Raucourt ; the Court Section of the Council of State 
was convoked, and obliged to give their written decision, 
that " an exception for producing court certificates, was 
admissible onlij for the deputies of the Imperial cities, be- 
cause their sovereign citizens had no courts, no kings, and no 
(jueensy 

It was after the peace of Amiens that Buonaparte first 
put in requisition the Senate, Council of State, Cardinals, 
Bishops, Judges, Tribunes, Prefects, Legislators, and his 
whole pack of revolutionary gentry, to praise the beauty, 
modesty, and virtue of his wife, as much as his ow^n bu- 
manity, greatness, and generosity. But it was between the 
preliminaries and the definitive treaty with England, that 
the First Consul, in liis u-isdoniy decreed the exhibition of 
his wife to the best advantage, during his journies to the 
provinces; be therefore dragged her with him to tbe Ita- 
lian Consulta, at Lyons, in January 180^, where she was 
officially complimented. It was, however, in his journey 
pf the year 1803, on the coast, and in Brabant, that the 
most disgusting and fulsome flattery and adulation were 
b^fbwed en masse upon the consular couple, and where 
revolutionary cardinals and bishops sacrilegiously blasphe- 
med the Creator, by styling an atrocious usurper His Pro- 
viDEKCE. They have scandalized all Europe, dishonour- 
ed their rank in the church, and debased their characters as 
citizens. They have tried to degrade the whole female 
sex, by repeatedjy holding np Madame Napoleone as 
" THE MODEL OF HER SEX, of manners as simple as her 
morals icere pure, icith innocence in her looks, und vivtue in 
her heart.'' 

Those, and other republican public functionaries their 
cowardly imitators, must be consigned to infamy without 
vindication, for having deserted the cause of religion and 
virtue, and committed, against full conviction, the crime 
of obliterating the distinction between good and evil, inno- 
cence and guilt; and instead of opposing the encroach- 
ments of wickedness and vice, having incited their progress 
and celebrated their conquests. 

Though Madame Napoleope disposes at present of thoq- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 10^ 

sands of Louis-d'ors, as she did formerly of livres and shil- 
lings, she is, by her extravagance in dress, and by her 
gambling, several millions of livres in debt. Lately at 
Brussels, she lost in six days, at cards and dice, fifty thou- 
sand Louis-d'ors, paid for her by the minister of the na- 
tional treasury, Marbois. According to the periodical print, 
Les Nouvelles a la Main, of Vendemiaire, year xii. or 
October 1803, Madame Napoleone never puts on any plain 
gown twice, and she changes her dress four or six times 
every day. In the summer, she makes use of four dozen 
of silk stockings, and three dozen of gloves and shoes ; and 
in the winter, three dozen of'the best English cotton stock- 
ings, and two dozen of French silk stockings, every week. 
She never wears any washed stockings, nor puts on twice 
the same pair of gloves or shoes. All her chemises are of 
the finest cambric, with borders of lace that cost ten Louis- 
d'ors each. Six dozen of chemises with lace are made up for 
her every month. Every three months she exchanges her 
diamonds and jewels, or has them newly set, according to 
the prevalent fashion. Four times in the year her plate, 
china, furniture, tapestry, hangings, carpets, &c. are chang- 
ed according to the seasons. She has ordered, as her regu- 
lar establishment, two new carriages and twelve different 
horses every month ; and of the thirty-six horses in her 
private stable, her master of the horse has a power to dis- 
pose of twelve every three decades, to be replaced by 
twelve others of a fashionable colour. Twelve times iq 
the year, all persons belonging to her household receive 
new accoutrements, or liveries. Her own wardrobe is 
divided every thirty days between her maids of honour. 

Madame Napoleone has four distinct established ward- 
robes, different diamonds, &c. for travelling, for the Thuil- 
leries, for St. Cloud, and for Malmaison ; and though she 
can reside but in one place at the same time, yet in the 
Thuilleries, as well as at St. Cloud and Malmaison, four 
changes of furniture, &c. are always ordered for the same 
period. At St. Cloud, she has (at the expence of six thou- 
sand Louis-d'ors) improved the bathing cabinet of the late 
unfortunate queen. By touching certain springs, she can 
command what perfumes her caprice demands to mix 
with the water ; the reservoirs always containing, for fifty 
Louis-d'ors, the finest odours, and best perfumed waters. 
By touching other springs, she commands the appearance 



110 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

of drawings or pictures, elegant or voluptuous, gay or li- 
bertine, as her fancy desires. When she wishes to leave 
the bath, at the signal of a bell, she is, by a mechanical 
invention, lifted, without moving herself from the bathing 
machine, into an elegant moderately warm and perfumed 
bed, where she is dried in two minutes; and from which she 
is again lifted and laid down upon a splendid elastic sofa, 
moved, without her stirring, by another piece of mechan- 
ism, into an adjoining cabinet for her toilet, of which the 
furniture and decorations cost 100,000 iivres. For the im- 
provements only of her luxurious, though less expensive 
bathing cabinets, at the Thuilleries and at Malmaison, the 
French Republic has paid 900,000 Iivres. 

To shew her pretensions to equality with empresses and 
queens, Madame Napoleone bespoke at Brussels two mag- 
nificent lace gowns, made after the pattern of one presented 
by the consistent Belgians to the model of her sex, her 
Consular Majesty. One of these gowns was destined for 
the Empress of Russia, and the other for the Queen of 
Prussia. The former, report says, has, to the great humi- 
liation of Madame Napoleone, been declined ; the French 
republicans, however, do not doubt but that the latter will 
be accepted, because they remember perfectly well, that 
the Queen of Prussia presented at Berlin, in 1799, to Buo- 
naparte's emissary Duroc, a scarf of the Prussian guards ; 
and her Majesty cannot therefore refuse a gown of honour 
offered from the amiable wife of Duroc's master. 

As no happiness is perfect in this world, Madame Na- 
poleone, thougii equally adored b}' her husband and by the 
French Republic, has numerous and serious family misfor- 
tunes to complain of. Her raotherin-law calumniates her 
innocent motives for not going regularly to confession ; and 
her brother-in-law, Lucien, calls her a hypocrite when she 
talks of confessing. Her sister-in-law, Madame Murat, is 
a dangerous rival in extravagance and in the fashions of the 
day ; and another sister-in-law, the Princess Borghese, c/- 
deimnt Madame Le Clerc, is an intolerable mimic of her 
juvenile airs, gait, and dress, contrasted with her antique 
WTinkles, plump person, and worn-out voice. Sometimes 
in his moments of frenzy, when he doubts of being soon 
proclaimed the English First Consul, even her Napoleone 
himself does not use her in the most tender manner. But 
instead of imitating her mother-in-law, who in her troubles 



THE BUONAPARTl: FAMILY. Ill 

calls her confessor and conjurors to her assistance, Madame 
Napoleone sends for her cup-bearer, vulgarly called butler, 
to strengthen her nerves and invigorate her courage vi^ith 
his all-powerful cordials, with his delicious wines, and with 
his no less delicious liqueui's: and while one Madame 
Buonaparte in her calamities looks up for relief to heaven, 
the other, more timid, more modest, with her downcast 
regards, seeks for, and implores the consolation of her cel- 
lar and of her buffet. 

Of the children that Madame Napoleone had during her 
first marriage, two only are living. Eugenuis de Beaur 
harnois, who is a consular colonel of the guides in the con- 
sular guard ; and Fanny de Beauharnois, married to Louis 
Buonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleone, a consular 
colonel of a consular regiment of dragoons. 

The same senatus consultus which, on the I6th of May 
1804, decreed Napoleone Buonaparte the title of an Em- 
peror of the French, covered the frailties of Josephine Tas- 
cher de la Pagerie w ith an imperial mantle. The first 
person who complimented her as such, publicly and offi- 
cially, was the ci-devant second consul and regicide, Cam- 
baceres.just transformed by Napoleone the First into a serene 
highness, and since decorated by Frederic IlL with the 
order of the Prussian Black Eagle. " It was," says a 
French publication, " an edifying spectacle to all lovers 
of equality, to see and hear, on Whitsunday, May 20th, 
1S04, Cambaceres, who had assisted in sending his king to 
the scaffold, and for ten years afterwards, [.three or four 
times in every month, sworn hatred to royalty, address the 
wife of a ci-devant true sansculotte, as an empress, as an 
imperial majesty; and to observe with what revolutionary 
bashfulness, and artless coquetry, the new sovereign listen- 
ed to these new expressions of her new subject. No farce 
was ever better acted even on the Boulevards than tiii^ 
drama was performed in the palace of the Thuilleries, 
though the actor had forgotten his numerous oaths, and 
the actress the sincere and serious admonitions of her first 
and guillotined husband, who, chained in a prison, praised 
liberty, and, with an axe on his neck, extolled equalit}^ 
Cambaceres was followed by the republicans of the senate, 
of the ministry, of the legislative body, of the tribunate, 
of the council of state, of the army and nav}', all striving 
to e^vince their zeal in swearing allegiance at the feet of a 



ll^ REVOLtJTIONARY PLUTARCft. 

princess, the model of her sex, whose many admirable vir-^ 
iues deserved a sceptre long before destiny did justice in 
presenting it. At this ingenious flattery, the empress's 
natural bashfulness and unaffected sensibility nearly over- 
came her delicate feelings. She assumed one of those 
piercing and electrifying looks, which made those v;ho had 
just prc>fessed themselves the most faitliful subjects of the 
empress the most submissive slaves of Josephine. O, Bar- 
ras! thousand times happy Barras ! go, and hang thyself! 
What would not every senator, minister, counsellor of 
state, legislator, tribune, general, and admiral, present, have 
given for a single ttte-a-tte,iox one of the many tete-d-tetes 
of which you, wretch, did not know the value! Again, 
unfortunate exile, hang thyself!" 

" When the bustle was over in the drawing-room, her 
majesty entered into her petit salon, accompanied by her 
imperial husband, whom, by ardently pressing to her c/- 
devant bosom, she almost petrified with her caresses, and 
terrified with her embraces. This ecstacy, notwithstand- 
ing the silver helmet which his majesty prudently wears 
concealed between his waistcoat and shirt, and the expla- 
natory imperial robes that decorated her person, made him 
tremble as if pursued by another Charlotte Corday. Ko 
doubt he remembered that Barras was now his sworn ene- 
my, and that his Josephine had more than once been the 
tender friend of Barras. The terror was, however, as un* 
seasonable as the suspicion was unfounded. Her majesty 
w'as intoxicated ; not with wine or liqueurs, but with joy, 
satisfaction, gratitude, vanity, and pride. For her Napo- 
leone she would that instant willingly have sacrificed every 
Barras in the world. Her regret or passions were then not 
sensual. The voice of reason had silenced the demands 
of her senses. Every body may rest assured, that during 
this whole day Barras never once occurred to her. As to 
her thoughts or dreams in the night, they are her secrets, 
and will, it is supposed, remain so. She is doomed to en- 
dure with patience in bed by her side the insignificance of 
a shade, or the impotence of a phantom, recollecting at 
the same time to whom she is indebted for her grandeur, 
and that in the imperial palace, among the high and low 
valets, as well as among the stout grenadiers, she may at 
leisure find more than one Barras to console her. The 
Thuillerics does not tpntain a single man, in or out of Vk 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. lU 

very, not excepting even his majesty's favourite mainc- 
lukes, whom she may not command, and be obeyed." In 
such a manner did Josephine pass her first days as an 
empress. The incorrigible mistrust and innate fear of her 
hu>band embittered the sweets of the rank which policy 
liad induced him to bestow on her. She felt that, although 
an empress, she had still a master. 

Shortly after his elevation at Paris, Buonaparte determin- 
ed to join the camps on the coast. His object was not to 
invade Great Britain, but to accustom his olhcers and sol- 
diers to the new changes, and to be hailed as a sovereign 
by troops who but lately saW'in him, though supreme 
chief of the state, nothing but a fellow citizen. This ab- 
sence from his capital would also give him and his wife an 
opportunity to organize the new officers of their house- 
hold, and foreign princes time to consider about, or to 
make out new credentials for their representatives iu 
France. He at first intended to have Josephine for his 
travelling companion ; but upon her intreaties, and with 
the advice of Talleyrand, the medical section of his coun- 
cil of state, presided by his physician Ccrvisart, was con- 
voked, when it was determined that the use of the waters 
at Aix-la-Chapelle would probably be of eminent service 
to the constitution of the empress. To their benign influ- 
ence it was stated, that Charlemagne, who had no children 
by his first wife, had afterwards a very numerous offspring 
by his wives as well as concubines. To this opinion Buo- 
naparte assented, notwithstanding the protest of Cardinal 
Caprara, who ascribed to miracles solely the fruitfulness 
of Charlemagne's bed. He had no objection, however, to 
the empress's visit to Aix-la-Chapelle; but he desired her 
to have more corifidence in the prayersof the faithful than 
faith in the notions of the faculty. Upon which, Buona- 
parte ordered, that, during his wife's stay at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, an extra mass should ho said every day in all the 
churches at Paris, to implore the miraculous assistance of' 
the holy Virgin, for the accomplishment of his and his 
subjects wishes, which so completely reconciled the Roman 
prelate, that in a fit of enthusiastic fervour he predicted 
that the imperial throne should at all times he occupied hxf 
an heir in a direct line. Had Louis XVllI. any children, 
thii oracle would probably not have been very acceptable 



U4 ^ REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

to a diffident usurper, who might have chastised the well- 
meaning and innocent prophet as an insidious and artful 
conspirator* 

The public functionaries upon the road from Paris to 
Aix-la-Chapelie began, as might have been expected, a 
laudable emulation who should be foremost to prostrate 
themselves before their new sovereign. The generals, pre- 
fects, and mayors, consulted the dictionary of harangues 
and " the art of addressing princes ;" and the bishops, 
rectors, and curates, rummaged *' the legends of saints," 
the " chronicle of martyrs," and " the register of mira- 
cles." Never at any period was more cringing exhibited, 
more absurdities expressed, or more ridiculous declamation 
thrown awa3^ Never before was such meanness better 
appreciated and more despised. A letter from the gay 
and good humoured empress to her accomplished and 
charming daughter, Hortense Eugenie, commonly called 
Fanny de Beauharnois, the wife of Louis Buonaparte, ex- 
plains this assertion better than can be done by an indif- 
ferent pen. 

Aix-la-Chapelle^ Friday. 
" Here I have been, my dearest child, ever since last 
Wednesday, weary of assiduities, harassed by visits, dis- 
gusted by flattery, by the duplicity of men, and by the 
hypocrisy of women. For seven long days, and seven, nay, 
seventeen times in the day, I have been compelled to keep 
a good countenance while hearing falsehoods addressed to 
me as truth, impieties pronounced as compliments, and 
improprieties declaimed as the elegance of rank and refine- 
ment of wit. During the whole journey I got into a per- 
spiration when I saw a village; I trembled in approaching 
a bourg ; and I was in a fever 04i entering a town or city. 
I open to you my secret thoughts without disguise. Ax 
the introduction of every deputation, I really was in an 
agony for fear of not being able to conceal the feeling of 
my mind. My heart was always full : at one time ready 
to burst by concealing the laughter which my contempt 
inspired, at another almost choaked to stop the tears pity 
provoked to flow, in contemplating perversity. Oh ! if 
my husband felt what I do. if he perceived the wickedness 
of sycophants, the selfishness of his friends, and the cor- 
ruption of his courtiers, how much would he despise the* 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 115 

whole crew! how much beneath him would he not find it 
to occupy all his thoughts for their welfare, to lose his rest 
to procure them quiet, and to expose himself to hourly 
risks for the happiness and comfort of a worthless, unprin- 
cipled, and degraded people, who worship him to day to 
idoJatry, but who to-morrow would be ready to hoot, 
insult, and murder him en masse, if the factious, envious, 
or treacherous, were to succeed in erecting a gibbet for 
him. I hear you say, that as atfeirs are now advanced the 
Emperor has no choice left but between a throne and a 
grave. True, my child ; but in the mean time, the slaves 
confined in our gallies are often less tormented by the 
weight of their iron fetters, than great folks, who, in trou- 
blesome and unsettled times, residing in imperial palaces, 
are harassed by the lustre of those golden chains which 
they are forced to wear as ornaments. 

" I have read but little, and meditated less on what I 
have read ; but the book of common sense tells me every 
day, that my Napoleone rules the most ungrateful, immoral 
and fickle nation in the universe, and that his dangers in- 
crease in proportion as he advances towards the pinnacle of 
supremacy. He has done too much already. Another 
glorious peace with England, and nothing more remains to 
be done; and we have all seen, that in this country the 
instant a sovereign ceases to be admired he is hated, and 
runs the hazard of ceasing to reign. 

" The Prince of B — , who has arrived here from Dussel- 
dorff, is chiefly the cause of tl^ese gloomy, or, as you will 
perhaps have it, anti-philosophical, ideas. No sooner had 
he been presented to me, than he demanded a private 
audience. If the shades of his ancestors had listened to 
his conversation, how would they have blushed at the ig- 
nominy of their descendant! He desired no less of me 
than to employ my interest with my husband to effect 
another revolution in the heart of Germany; and, like 
another Orleans, to exterminate the elder branch of his 
family, in hopes of succeeding to, or seizing, their autho- 
rity. His ofiers were brilliant indeed, if any thing could 
be brilliant to me, who am tired even to satiety of brilliancy 
itself. Upon my firm declaration, that by a promise to the 
Emperor I was bound not to interfere with political trans- 
actions or intrigues, I got rid of him, but the impression 
hh overtures made remain behind. 



1 



116 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

"Twice already bave T bathed; but to tell you the 
truth, neither ihe opinions of physicians nor the prayers 
oT priests inspire me with ihe confidence of being able to 
give an heir to the French empire. The cause you know, 
i was born a dozen years too early; but your dear boy, 
our little Napoleon, makes me perfectly resigned to what 
1 cannot change. 

" In the forenoon a courier brought me a letter from the 
roast. 'J'he Emperor is highly satisfied with the reception 
given him by his brave troops, and I rejoice at it with all 
my sot'l. I cannot, however, help remembering, that these 
brave troops are the same Frenchmen, who, after obeying 
and adoring them, have seen with inditference, Louis XVL 
murdered, Robespierre guillotined, Barras exiled, Pichegru 
strangled, and Moreau' dishonoured. He does not expect 
ro join me so soon as he first intended. He is provoked to 
the highest degree at the audacity and insolence of the 
F^nglish cruizers, and he is dete-rmined to make them re- 
pent of it before he leaves Boulogne. May heaven preserve 
him ! otherwise, I am certain to find the road of my return 
to Pans planted with thorns, though during my late pas- 
sage it was strewed with roses. 

'* The inseparable consoles me ^very night with his 
roiiversaihn for a couple of hours; but he begins to ac- 
knowledge himself an invalid, and that an lionourallc 
retreat in the senate v.-i I! soon be necessary. An)ong your 
young and gallant conscripts at Com peigne, take care not 
to lay aside discretion and prudence. 1 know \'our hus- 
band's character, I know the character of his family ; and 
the revengeful spirit of his countrymen. If he once sus- 
pect you, you are undone: you will not only be deprived 
of his love and esteem, but of the regard and atfection my 
Napo'eone has for you. But the emperor's Argus tells me 
that it is time to go to bed. Ami not very complaisant 
lo steal from my sleep two hours to chatter [jaser) with 
you. Embrace your husband and child." 

The authenticit}^ of this and some lollowing letters the 
French publisher guarantees, having found them in the 
portfolio which was lost by Princess Louis Buonaparte in 
lier removal from the camj) of Compeigne to Paris, last 
autumn. The contents undoubtedly do credit to the judg- 
ment, to the honour, and to the heart of the empress, though 
at the expence of the morals and character of the? nation 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 117 

which her husband sways with such an oppressive and un- 
limited power. It also removes a part of the veil which 
covers without concealing the disgraceful behaviour and 
selfish views of so many German princes. In the end, 
confidence and coquetry report the perpetration of adul- 
tery with the same inditference as if relating the particulars 
of a route. The mother and the daughter seem to be 
tolerably unreserved, and in the perfect secret of each 
other's intrigues. From Madame Louis's affection and 
generosity towards her mamma, it is supposed that at least 
from charity, she has taken^the hint, and spared some of 
her young conscripts to relieve the invalid. In what light 
Louis Buonaparte, who at that time commanded the camp 
at Compeigne, and who is not very tolerant or enduring, 
has, since the printinp^ of these letters, considered this ma- 
ternal effusion of tenderness, is not known. The scanda- 
lous chronicle states, however, that as a true philosopher, 
instead of reprobating his mother-in-law, or repudiating 
his wife, he consoled himself in the arms of Madame de 
C. the beautiful wife of his ugly aid-de-camp, colonel de C. 
From the following letter it is evident, that the stay at 
Aix-la-Chapelle did no more exalt the spirits than the use 
of the waters improved the liealth of the revolutionary em- 
press. 

AiX'JayChapelle, Sunday. 

*' I write to you, my beloved Fanny, indisposed by 
drinking the waters, so benign to others, and enervated by 
bathing, which has so often given the vigour of youth to 
old age, restored strength to the feeble, blessed with con- 
solation the unfortunate, with content the depressed, and 
with hope even the wretched. 

" I see round me so many unthinking beings, wiio judge 
the situation of mankind from external appearances only, 
who confound happiness with greatness, and internal com- 
fort with external splendour: how w'retchedly mistaken 
they are! The natural weakness, and the human frailties, 
from which the highest is no more excepted than the low- 
est, are all censured in those placed above them, while 
their virtuous inclinations, their generous sentiments, their 
liberal actions, and honourable acts, which even confounded 
in the crowd, would command distinction from equals, are 
left alwaj's nnperceived, unnoticed^ or if remarked, only 



lis REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

supposed an ordinary duty, expected from a superior by 
his inferiors. 

" My presence here has attracted not only a number of 
Frenchinen, but foreigners of all nations in amity with 
France. The}' are all busy and attentive to pay me their 
homage, and, like the statue of the virgin in the cathedral, 
I am for hours, nay, every hour in the day, forced to stand 
upon my pedestal, and receive with a good grace the wor- 
ship of the wicked and the good ; of the wise and the fool- 
ish ; of the man who, from his birth, I know must despise 
me; of the wcmarj who, from her pretensions to beauty, 
envies me ; of the enlightened, who knows liis own worth ; 
and of the ignorant, who despises the worth of others, 
having none himself. 'J'he Virgin in the heavens, or at 
least her statue in the church, is, however, much better off 
than the empress upon earth. At night, her temple is shut 
against all intruders. But when all the tiresome, dull, and 
disagreeable ceremonies of the day are over, I — poor 
I— am, at the cxpence of my sleep, obliged to hear read to 
nie all the letters or petitions with which persons of rank, 
pretended scavans, needy artists, the adventurer, the mise- 
rable, the profligate, the ambitious, the vain, the covetous, 
the sick, and the scheemer, so profusely choose to plague 
me. Poor Deschamps! (her secretary) I really pity him, 
who, on my part, answers this mass of nonsense, of frivo- 
lity, pride, imposture, want, and lamentation. Oh, how I 
regret my former humble, but quiet retreat in the Rue dcs 
V'ictoires, when, undisturbed and uninterrupted, my, ever 
regretted de Beauharnois and I were meditating at leisure 
on the time that was necessary for business, we could spare 
to pleasure, or was requisite to revive the corporeal as well 
as intellectual faculties. lis sont passe ccs jours de fete, 
ils ne revJendront pins. 

" Since my last to you, four couriers have brought me 
four letters, of four lines each, from my husband. He is 
discontented on account of the delays his plans against 
England are subject to; and therefore, in his ill humour, 
blames me for being too condescending, and not of a mind 
and manner exalted enough for the situation in which he 
has placed me. My demands to know in what I have erred, 
he passes over in silence, but continues to harshly repro- 
bate faults with which I am unacquainted, and to hold out 
threats of vrhich he must be well aware that I dread the 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^119 

e(Tecf. Good God! how difTerent was your good — too 
good father! May heaven give me strength to siibnriit to 
niv destiny ! / have perhaps ahead y lived too long ! 

" I am glad to hear of the advanced state of your preg- 
nancy, and that your husband has found some diversion in 

the attractions of the coquetry of Madame . Show 

yourself prudently jealous, but not irremediably hurt. In- 
difference on your part, in present circumstances, would 
be as impolitic as an explanation w'ould be foolish, and an 
explosion dangerous. Be rather more reserved in your 
usual train of pleasure, at least until he is convinced that 
you are no longer a stranger to his infidelity. Then if he 
should discover your intrigues, he will have reason to think 
them rather the vengeance of an outraged wife, than the 
enjoyment in which a disappointed woman seeks to forget 
the irresistible temptations, or cruel cause, which made her 
renounce eternal honovar for a momentary gratification of 
her passions. I am always agitated in opening your dear 
letters, apprehensive that the want of my experience may 
have led you into diiiiculties, from which my, and even 
your, future affection will find it no easy matter to extri- 
cate you. I repeat again, be circumspect, but be also vigi- 
lant. Collect proofs, and search for evidence, before you 
receive his, or expose your own act of accusation. 

" The day before yesterday a courier from Mr. d'Arberg 

brought me a letter from the queen of P -. How 

condescending she is, or rather how agreeable is her du- 
plicity, in writing to a person for whom in her heart she 
must entertain the most sovereign contempt: and she 
styles me her dear sister! me whom she well knows 
that fortunate bayonets, and not birth or merit, have made 
her equal, if not superior. My husband's and my own 
secret correspondence with certain princes and princesses, 
were it made public, would be more serviceable to the 
plots of demagogues than all the tenets of republicans and 
sophistry of levellers. 

" To please my husband, I have t^eriousiy studied the 
voluminous ceremonials sent me by Champigny, concern- 
ing the etiquette of the court of Vietina, as well as those 
forwarded to me by La Foret, concerning that of the court 
of St, Petersburg. What ridiculous littleness, and what 
petty trifles am I to learn and to observe! At my time of 
Irfe to go to school ; to submit to be instructed like a miss 



I'^d REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

of twelve, to repeat lessons, and to perform parts repug- 
nant to reason, and a libel on the sense of ail those present- 
ed to me, cannot be very agreeable. What, however, will 
1 not do to escape the rod of my severe master? Madame 
ReraOsat, as well as Madame d'Arberg, is content with my 
progress, and applaud my zeal. As to the regulation of 
our household, it is more easy to decree or invent places, 
than to find persons proper to iill them. You know the 
old nobility shun our court, from which my husband has 
determined to exclude all upstarts. Of ten ladies of anci- 
ent families, to whom I have offered places round me, two 
only have accepted, six have declined, and two have not 
even condescended to give me an answer. Although those 
first two are females whom Louis XVL banished from the 
court of Maria Antoinette, on account of the scandal of 
their lives, I must regard their acceptance as an honour. 
Take care not to mention to any body the contempt with 
which I have been treated on this occasion. Should it 
come to the ears of Napoleone, woe to the families, rela- 
tives, and friends, of these refractory persons. I'hey are 
all ruined by the revolution, and their misery is punishment 
enough. I embrace you, your husband, and child, aflec- 
tionatelv." 

The letter part of this letter requires some explanation. 
Unprincipled and vicious as many modern Frenchmen 
have shown themselves, the most respectable of the ancient 
French nobility, though beggared by a rebellion which has 
made a Corsican vagabond their sovereign, have, however, 
always refused, not only with dignity hut with obstinacy, 
to wear his livery as placemen and courtiers. A late pub- 
lication relates several interesting particulars on this sub- 
ject. In order to introduce into their new court a princely 
magnificence, Buonaparte and his wife wanted that which 
neither influence nor wealth could procure, viz. a nume- 
rous retinue of nobility. Whatever Buonaparte may have 
achieved, and how far he may flatter himself with having 
succeeded ; however assiduous and submissive Madame 
Buonaparte may have been towards Madame Montessan, 
at whose house the most ancient noblesse used to assemble, 
she could obtain no other favour for herself and fanjily 
than admission to some of their small parties, where she 
had occasionally the honour to be seated between dukes, 
marquises, counts, and barons, and to hear these fine titles 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 121 

Tingling in her ears; but to draw only a few members, and 
even the most unworthy^ from this holy circle, in order 
to place them in her own retinue, was utterly impossible. 

" Segur, the ex-minister, being newly appointed to a 
high office in administration, indulged his youngest son so 
far as to allow him to accept the place of a vice prefect of 
the palace. The noble league instantly rose against him 
in a body, as he was reckoned among high and ancient no- 
bility, on account of one of his ancestors having been a 
marechal de France. All the citizens with " de" before 
their surname, who figured at the new court in the liveries 
of prefects, vice prefects, &c. tvere looked upon by the ri- 
gorists as the servile and lesser nobility of former times. 

" But fortune will not always smile; her greatest favour- 
ites will one time or other meet with some impediment in 
their way, some obstacle to their desires. He who rode 
triumphant over Mount St. Gothard, and through the san- 
dy deserts of Syria; he who gives law to most countries 
of Europe, and disposes of the finest states at pleasure; 
this mighty chief, at the head of so populous an empire, 
feels desires that he cannot satisfy. Casting his longing 
eye around, he fixes it, by chance, upon the saloon of Ma- 
dame de Montessan. It happened at that moment to be 
crowded with persons of the first rank. " Those nobles 
shall be my attendants,'* he cries, and immediately dis- 
patches his devoted daemons with invitations, offers, and 
promises. But promises, offers, and invitations, are ineffec- 
tual ; the messenger returns disappointed and chagrin- 
ed ; he tells him that all his efforts have been fruitless, that 
their demands were far beyond what he w^ould accede to. 

" The angry, fearful man, is thus compelled to stand 
alone on the pinnacle of his newly acquired dignity, watch- 
ing night and day these rebels to his will. Their words, 
their actions, their looks, are equally objects of his suspi- 
cion ; not even a gesture is suffered to escape him. Alarm- 
ed by continual fears when they assemble in great numbers, 
he immediately disperses them. If they flee back to the 
coast, they are driven to the mountains ; if they take refuge 
among the rocks, they are hunted to the sea. His slaves 
obey the hint, pursue them, and, panting for breath, return 
to catch the despot's new orders, and find their pale-faced 
master leaning on his still more pale-faced harlot, both 

Q 



122 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

turning their faint and envious looks towards the saloon of 
Madame de Montessan, the resort of this disobedient and 
obstinate noblesse. These noble suflerers are the only per- 
sons who dare stand in opposition to Buonaparte. They 
live in their own country as in a strange land ; they take 
no notice of the new court, its festivities, or brilliant assem- 
blies. They adopt none of the new fashions introduced 
by the new comers. Even those among them who have 
saved great estates, or still possess sufficient property to live 
in a sumptuous style, do not make any pubUc display. 
Their small social assemblies contain alone what may be 
called Ja hoime compagnie ; and as most of them are men of 
refined manners, and many of them well informed, and of 
great fame, several of them, even the mo^t distinguished 
literari in royal France, they keep within their own circle. 
All ioreigners of education, naturally disgusted with the 
aukward behaviour and the tasteless luxury of the present 
court, endeavour to be admitted into their society; an ho- 
nour by no means easily obtained. Still it must be con- 
fessed, that the fine Paris of old, which had so much attrac- 
tion for every man of taste, talents, and good breeding, can 
only be met with in these select societies. I will not blame 
Madame Buonaparte, who lived as maid of honour to the 
late queen, for sighing after the only respectable company 
at Paris; but she must renounce the happiness of seeing 
these persons in her suit at court. Many inducements 
have certainly been given them, but they all seem to say, 
restore us the old court, with all its appendages, that will 
be well ; but we shall never be brought to acknowledge 
these upstarts for its rightful owners. 

" The very cause which renders Madame Buonaparte so 
desirous to associate with the old noblesse, must induce 
the latter to keep at a distance. There is nothing of that 
politeness, ease, vivacity, and grace, which signalised the 
societies at the royal court. Every body stares with a sla- 
vish gaze at Buonaparte, who treats them indiscriminately 
in a dry, cold, and harsh manner. He sometimes attempts 
^o be polite and witty, but his politeness is a proud conde- 
scension, and his wit is satire. There is always something 
rough or low in his way of expressing himself. He fre- 
quently makes use of terms only to be found in the mouth 
of the upstart soldier, and proscribed by all good company. 
He is capable of uttering the most abusive language with 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 123 

the greatest indifference. The tone of his voice is deep 
and hoarse, and what he says is often accompanied with 
such a disagreeable laugh, that nobody can feel easy with 
him, even when he intends to say the most agreeable 
things. The highest officers of state must sometimes hear 
themselves addressed by epithets which certainly never 
escaped the lips of a sovereign. If he supposes that he 
has caught any of his ministers or privy-counsellors in some- 
thing contradictor}^ he frequently says, " Voiis etes un 
homme de mauvaise foi,'^ or " Vous me trompe,'' (You are 
an impostor, or You deceive m^.) 

During the continuance of her stay at Aix-la-Chapelle 
the empress's only agreeable amusement until her hus- 
band's arrival, was the gambling-table, having by her phy- 
sician been strictly warned not to indulge her inclination 
for good eating and drinking. She was not fortunate 
either at cards or with dice ; and the pecuniary allowance of 
Buonaparte not being over liberal, she was under the ne- 
cessity of laying under contribution the purses of her 
friends and courtiers. They were, however, soon drained, 
and other expedients were resorted to. Several German 
princes and princesses having implored her protection to 
obtain from her husband a large share of the plunder of 
their country, called indemnities, her secretary Deschamps 
addressed himself to them on the part of his sovereign. 
Their supply was, as might be expected from the object 
they had in view, scanty. Some deputies from certain 
imperial cities, hearing of the express's dilemma, came 
voluntarily forward with offers to avoid apprehended forc- 
ed requisitions. But Talleyrand, regard in r the regulation of 
these kinds of patriotic donations as belonging exclusively 
to his department, stopped this resource by a letter to Des- 
champs, in which he threatened to inform the emperor of 
these exactions, if continued. He advised, at the same time, 
as a sure means for the eni press to recover her losses, the 
seizure of all the public and privileged gambling banks; to 
take from them the sums lost, and to restore them the 
remainder. Orders were given in consequence, and the 
police commissary Deville, under pretence that he had 
received depositions and denunciations from several quar- 
ters, that these banks contained many forged bank-notes 
and false Louis-d'ors,laid hands on their whole stock. After 
a very minute investigation, two millions of livres, in paper 



124 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

and money, the exact sum lost by the empress, were con- 
fiscated as fabricated bills, or base coin. The bankers 
complained to the minister of police, senator Fouche, to 
whom they paid one hundred thousand livres (4000/.) a 
month for their privilege; but he prudently answered that 
he should always protect them as fair gamesters, but could 
do nothing for them when accused of being forgers or 
coiners. He recommended them to be silent about what 
had happened, and think themselves fortunate to have 
escaped so cheap, with the sacrifice of an insignificant sei^ 
zure, instead of being sent to the gallows, as their crimes 
deserved. For Deville, the empress procured in a short 
time afterwards the knighthood of the legion of honour. 

The empress has a fault common with all the members 
of the Buonaparte family : she 7iever pays her debts. In- 
stead of satisfying her creditors with the money plundered 
in the banks, she laid it out in purchasing brilliants or dia- 
mond trinkets for herself and her children. After stripping 
most of the visitors at Aix-la-Chapelle, of their bracelets, 
necklaces, and rings, she sent her valet de chambre, Tariie, 
to Amsterdam, to spend the remainder of her cash in the 
jewellers' shops of tnat city. It is supposed that the ecr?7i 
or jewel-box of Josephine is of more value than those of 
all other continental princesses together. It is estimated 
^t two millions and a half sterling, or sixty millions of 
livres. To review, arrange and admire its contents, is her 
constant and most delightful occupation every morning, 
whilst her friseur valet de chambre is curling her hair or 
putting on her wigs, and when her chamber-maids of ho- 
nour are washing, dressing and painting her. 

When Buonaparte laid hold of the famous and precious 
crown diamond, called in France " the Regent," and in 
England, " the Pitt diamond," which now glitters at the 
hilt of his state-sword, and is hung up with other trophies 
at his bed-side, his Josephine would not be behindhand. 
She seized upon the rich and magnificent golden toilet of 
the late unfortunate queen, which had hitherto escaped all 
the former shameless thieves in authority, the natural, but 
depraved progeny of the revolution. The empress is^ 
however, growing more ugly since she looked into the 
mirror of the beautiful and accomplished Maria Antoin- 
ette. Can it be the tenderness of her conscience, that has 
occasioned such a s^d alteration.'^ Is it not rather from 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 125 

spite and despair, at seeing her own antiquated features, 
and remembering the elegant and youthful form and 
traits of her late royal mistress ? This toilet may augment 
the value of her stolen treasures, but can neither make her 
wrinkles less numerous, change the colour of her grey hair, 
whiten her teeth, sweeten her breath, or whitewash her 
skin more than her morals. 

All the members of the foreign diplomatic corps in 
France, w^hose sovereigns had so far forgotten their own 
dignity and interest, as to acknowledge Buonaparte in the 
new title he so impudently had assumed, preceded him to 
Aix-la-Chapelle, where a kirld of mock congress was held 
by Talleyrand, who, to soften his master's rage at not being 
able to annihilate the independence of the British empire, 
published, in a revolutionary manifesto, a political excom- 
munication against the British government. That this act 
was, however, far from even calming the violent passions 
of the disappointed usurper, his wife's letter clearly proves. 

** Aix-la-Chapelle, Friday, 
" From my former letters, my beloved child has seen 
that my mind neither possessed content, nor enjoyed tran- 
quillity, and that the sufferings of my body equalled the 
agitation of my soul. But if I was really unhappy then, 
what shall I call my situation since my husband has joined 
me ? Having been obliged to postpone his vengeance 
against England, all the wrath of his disappointment is 
poured out on me. He has never ceased to ill-use, and 
even to ill-treat me when we are alone; and in public, iu 
the presence of princes and their representatives, from 
whom he wishes me to command respect, he expresses, 
himself to me harshly, vulgarly and rudely. I am sure, 
because I have experienced it, that I inspire the audience 
with no other sentiments than those of compassion or pity, 
They do not want much penetration to observe, or saga-f 
city to conclude that the most exalted among them is also 
the most wretched. 

" To quiet his unbecoming fury, Talleyrand has in vain 
tried to convince him, that the political annihilation of 
Great Britain may be more easily effected by intrigues and 
influence in the cabinets of the continent, than by attacks, 
and battles in the plains of the British islands. These, as 
well as; all other efforts of his ministers and favourites tq 



126 REVOLUTIONARY rLUTARCII. 

divert his attention and compose his mind, have not been 
able to produce even a momentary tranquiliit3^ ^^ ^^'^ 
lost all relish for the trifling rest he formerly took: he goes, 
however, to bed at bis usual hour, but he hardly slumbers 
(sleep he has none) for live minutes together; and, good 
God, what a slumber! all his limbs are trembling as from 
convulsive-fits; his eyes are rolling, his teeth gnashing, hii 
breast swelling, his pulse beating, and his whole body burn- 
ing as if consumed by a fever ; and when he wakes, he 
starts suddenly, and often jumps out of his bed to seize his 
sword, pistols, and dagger, as if pursued by assassins. 
Though you may easily guess I am not asleep, or if asleep, 
disturbed by such violent motions, I dare not, for my life, 
let him suspect it. The beautiful verse of De Lille often 
occurs to me; * 

Le Hi dc Cromivdl le punk pour son trone. 

And I am convinced that the obscure condition of Richard 
Cromwell, the philosopher, was millions of times prefera- 
ble to the illustrious one of Oliver Cromwell, the protector. 
This state of my husband has greatly impaired my health, 
and if lie is incurable, or does not lose his senses, he will 
drive me out of mine, or kill me. We intend, however, 
soon to leave this place, and to continue our journey to 
Mentz along the delightful banks of the Rhine. He will 
then have more occuj)ation to attend to, and more diversity 
of objects to attract his notice. May they palliate if they 
cannot relieve his terrible complaint I 

" As for the officers of our court and round our persons, 
I have by some pecuniary sacrifices made a very valuable 
acquisition. Segur has accepted of the place of grand 
master of the ceremonies, and has promised to recruit 
among the nobility persons agreeable to my husband to fill 
the several other vacancies. 1 have given him my bond 
for 600,000 livres, 25,000/. which Gauthier (the minister of 
finances) has promised to take up, and, when a proper 
opportunity otfers, discharge it with the money of the state; 
which certainly cannot be better employed than to keep 
up the necessary splendour of the chief of the first empire 
in the world. 

" General Mortier has presented me with eight bt^autiful 
cream-coloured horses of the King of England's stud in 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 127 

Hanover, as trophies of the success of my husband's armies. 
1 thought it would be an agreeable conipliment to him to 
surprize him with the sight of them. Accordingly I or- 
dered Colonel Fouler, one cf my equerries, to bring them 
before our windows immediately after our breakfast; but 
how astonished was I when, instead of appreciating my 
good intent, Napoleone first rebuked me with one of his 
terrifying frowns, and then, after a moment's silence, said, 
loud enough to be heard by all persons present : *' Madam, 
you are always stupid or malicious enough to find out 
some unpleasant subject or other to remind me of the ex- 
istence of a nation, the ruin of which I have sworn so long 
ago, but which unforeseen circumstances have hitherto 
prevented me from accomplishing." A tear I was unable 
to restrain procured me the order " to retire instantly to 
my apartments, and to remain there until he permitted me 
to leave them." I have now been shut up for five hours, 
and a part of that time I have employed in searching for 
the sole consolation yet left me upon earth, to unbosom 
myself to my dearest child, the only sincere friend fortune 
has left me. I hope, however, my imprisonment will soon 
cease. We have announced, that we will see company to 
night, and expect in consequence numerous attendants. 
His pride and vanity will therefore restore me that liber- 
ty of w^hich his cruelty and want of tenderness have de- 
prived me. 

" I have just received my husband's orders to dine alone 
in my room, but to dress immedately afterwards for the 
circle. I embrace you, j^our husband, and dear baby most 
afiectionately." 

This letter confirms the many reports concerning Buo- 
naparte's brutal, indelicate, ungentleman-like, and violent 
behaviour towards his wife. He is stated more than once, 
and for the most insignificant mistakes or trifling errors, 
not onl}^ to have rebuked her in gross language, but to have 
used her with low brutality by beating and kicking her out 
of his presence, and even sometimes, as a punishment, con- 
fined her to her room upon bread and water for forty-eight 
hours. Had it not been for the interference of his daugh- 
ter-in-law, (the present Madame Louis Buonaparte,) for 
her mother, it is supposed he would either lon;< ago have 
divorced, or, to avoid .9ca«^a/, dispatched her with a good 
dose of poison. She has been obliged to change ali heC 



\2S REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

former habits of life ; to go early to bed, to rise often before 
daylight, to dine at hours she formerly breakfasted, and to 
devour rather than to eat, because Buontiparte is always in 
a hurry to get up from the table. As to his pretended 
love for her in always sleeping with her, it is nothing else 
but a well calculated manoeuvre for his personal safety. A 
thousand little things, tending in appearance only to their 
comfort, are measures that suspicion, guilt, and fear, have 
thought necessary and dictated for the preservation of exis- 
tence. The empress has her instructions, which are care- 
fully attended to every night, and in every house where 
they chance to sleep. Under pretence of being fond of a 
good bed, she visits every mattress, has the bed made be- 
fore her, and, after having convinced herself that no places 
of concealment for revengeful or wicked persons are in the 
room, she locks it, puts the key in her pocket, and when 
supper is over gives it to her maid in waiting, who opens 
the door, enters with her, and, after assisting her to un- 
dress, retires. Then another domiciliary visit is made, and 
the mattresses are again turned before the ringing of the 
bell announces to her husband that he may enter without 
danger. Not confiding, however, entirely in the assurance 
of his wife, he begins and goes through a general search 
before he undresses. As caprice or fear dictates, he varies 
his place inside or outside of the bed, not only every night, 
but soraetim.es three or four times in the night. By the 
bedside is always suspended his sword, under his pillow 
lays a dagger, and by the bedside are two double-barrelled 
and loaded pistols. In such a state of siege the mighty 
empQror and empress pass their nights. Is grandeur worth 
possessing when it can only be acquired and preserved at 
the expence of happiness? The journal of one week of 
Buonaparte's life since an emperor would be the most va- 
luable gift loyalty could present to rebellion, and the best 
lesson lawful princes could publish for the perusal of am- 
bitious, conspiring, and treacherous subjects. 

" Buonaparte," says a work already quoted, " uses no 
restraint in addressing his own wife in abusive language. 
He can publicly speak to her in the severest manner if, by 
chance, he does not approve of her dress or deportment, 
as being too free, too improper, or unbecoming. The 
beautiful Madame Tallien, the intimate friend of Madame 
Buonaparte, when once, after a somewhat long absence of 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. log 

her husband, she appeared in a visible state of pregnancy f 

in iier saloon, which was full of company, was asked by 
him, quite ioud and sternly, how she could dare to appear 
in that situation before his wife? and he then ordered her 
instantly to leave the room. 

*' The present wife of the minister Talleyrand, who is 
reported not always to have acted the part of a rigid 
prude, when Madame Grand, was complimented by him, 
at her first introduction into the circle of Madame Buona- 
parte, in the following manner : " Sespere que Madame 
TaJleyrand fera oublier Madame Grand/ The poor wo- 
man is said to have answered in the greaiest confusion, 
" that she would always be proud to follow the example 
of Madame Buonaparte." If Madam Talleyrand had been 
looked upon as a lady of parts, her answer might have been 
thought a witty one." 

Such anecdottes evince that the age of chivalry is gone 
for ever, even in France, and that the petty vain usurper is 
merely a pretender to refinement of manners, as well as to 
noble achievements; a tyrant in the drawing-room as well 
as in heading armies or presiding in cabinets. It requires 
a man of another stamp of character to polish the language 
of upstarts, and to correct the morals of rebels. 

With the ferocity of a tiger and the cunning of a fo]t 
Buonaparte unites the ridiculous pride of a capricious and. 
spoiled child. His fury against England, which neither 
the humiliating fawning of foreign ambassadors, nor the 
base flattery of his own ministers, could diminish, the Pope, 
by promising, at the expence of honour, duty, and con- 
science, to place the crown of St. Louis upon the head of 
the assassin of his descendant, immediately calmed. The 
tears of the empress are dried up, and in present caresses 
she forgets past sufterings as well as those awaiting her for 
the future. While the gaudy plaything with which Pius VIL 
has consented to amuse by decorating the imperial baby, 
Napoleone the First, attracts his whole attention, his wife's 
whole study and occupation are how to profit by this re- 
spite, how to enrich herself and her children, and hov/ to 
procure places and pensions to her relatives, friends, and 
favourites. 

R 



130 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

" Cohlentz, Sunday. 
" How fortunate I am to announce to you, my dcarly 
beloved child, an unexpected and favourable change in my 
dear Napoleone. A courier from Rome has brought him 
the certain intelligence of his holiness the Pope having at 
Jast consented to undertake a journey to France during the 
autumn, to perform in person the ceremony of our corona- 
tion. This generous condescension on the part of the 
Roman pontiff has been a balm on the wounded spirits of 
my husband. He is now what he was to me last May. 
Though often agitated with real or imaginary apprehen- 
sions, and troubled with the weight of affairs of state, he 
is unusually attentive to me as his wife, and confidential 
with me as with his sincerest friend. It would have been 
wrong in me to neglect profiting of this fit of good dispo- 
sition and good temper to advance the private concerns of 
myself, family, and friends. Marbois (the minister of the 
treasury) has already received orders to pay into my hands 
from the tribute of Sptiin, 1,500,000 livres, ()4,6oO/. to 
Eugenius (her son) 500,000 livres, 21,000/. and an equal 
sum to you. I gave him, before his departure for the coast, 
a list of thirty-two persons allied or dear to me, for whom 
I demanded places as senators, legislators, tribunes, pre- 
fects, &c. I have twice before, since he joined me, attempt- 
ed to mention this list, but his terrible frowns struck me 
mute. This niorning I was agreeably surprised when he 
informed me, during our breakfast, that all my recommen- 
dations had been attended to, except those of two persons, 
respecting whom he asked me some questions. Being sa- 
tisfied as to their attachment to his person, he bade me 
write, and he signed my note, to Joseph, who is to order 
the senate to include them among the new members of the 
legislative body. Of the sixty persons I presented for the 
legion of honour, poor La Roche alone was excluded, by 
somebody having informed my husband that he had for 
six years served in La Vendee and among the Chouans. 
Upon my assurance, however, that it must be a mistake 
from similitude of names, and by shewing him a letter, in 
which our friend professed himself ready to shed the last 
drop of blood in the support of our throne and house, he 
not only ordered La Cepede (the chancellor of the legion 
of honour) to put the name of La Roche upon the list of 
the other members of the legion of honour, but promised 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 131 

me to grant him the first vacant place in the staff of our 
guard. Do you not rejoice at the hope of having such a 
tender friend settled at Paris ? 

" The people in this country seem to me not so insinu- 
ating as our Frenchmen, but I believe they are more sin- 
cere. They have almost overpowered me with their stiff 
caresses and aukward presents, as well as with their eter- 
nal petitions. As Napoleone is now in a humour to listen 
to me, I have strictly enjoined Deschamps to pay serious 
attention to their demands ; that, if the least probability of 
justice exists, I may, by forwarding and pleading their 
cause, gain, with popularity, ^their affection. 

" By an agent from the Prince of O I have been 

offered a handsome sum for procuring an electoral dignity; 

by another agent from the Elector of B yet more is 

promised for a kingly title; and the old Marquis de 
L has presented me with SLcarte-hlanche, could I ob- 
tain for his sovereign the election of a king of the Romans. 
Besides these, a number of German Barons wish to pay for 
being made counts, and these latter for being exalted to the 
rank of princes. I have declined giving any answer to these 
proposals until my arrival at Mentz, where I am assured 
many similar proposals are waiting for me. Could any 
body ever have dreamed that a little Creole wench from 
Martinico should once have in her power to influence in 
Europe the destiny of empires and nations ; to make prin- 
ces electors, electors kings, and kings emperors in petto? 
Do we not live in an age of wonders ? 

'* What do you think of the gallantry of my dear Na- 
poleone? Just as I was finishing my letter he entered my 
room, asking me to whom I wrote ? Upon being informed 
that it was to my beloved child, he said: ** Tell her, that 
from the day of my coronation I will increase her and her 
brother's allowance with 600,000 livres annually, and add 
to yours double that sum in the year. How lovely he is 
when he chuses! I pressed him most tenderly in my arms, 
assuring him that every minute of my existence should be 
employed to meditate his comfort. '* From your late pa- 
tient conduct I do not doubt the sincerity of your promi- 
ses," said he, giving me one of the sweetest kisses in his 
life. If you mention to your husband the late presents 
of Napoleone, bind him to secrecy, that his mother, bro- 
thers, and sisters may not hear of it. You knov/ tijat they 



132 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

hsive all got enough, but ncvertlielejs they never cease to 
teaze him for more. 

" CutiareHi (Buonaparte's aide-de-camp) is ordered to 
set out immediately for Rome, with a letter from my hus- 
band to his holiness the Pope. As 1 am indebted to this 
respectable head of our church for all my present happi- 
ness, I have, with Napoleone's permission, joined to his a 
letter of mine, expressing my livtly feelings and sincere 
gratitude. Before I sealed it I gave it to my husband, who 
said : ** Well done, my dearest Josephine! you are as elo- 
quent as tender." My dearest Josephine! Tljis is the first 
time during seven nionths that I have been blessed with 
such an appel^tion. 

" You can form no idea how Napoleone rejoices at your 
present advanced stat(^ of pregnancy. Should heaven bless 
you with another boy, I do not know what he will not do 
for you. From his conversation, 1 am certain that either 
your husband has no suspicions, or that Napoleone has 
judged them unfounded and silenced them. He has not, 
even when angry or in ill-humour, thrown out the most 
distant hint on your account; on the contrary, he always 
speaks of you with the most tender atfection ; and 1 do 
not hesitate to afifirmjthat, in case of reciprocal accusation, 
he would sooner listen to you than to your husband, who 
must be well aware of the power you possess oyer him, 
and that it therefore is his interest to preserve peace and 
good understandmg, were he even informed of intrigues, 
which it will be your own fault if he ever penetrates into. 
Be, however, always on your guard. In yoiir actual and 
delicate condition I know from experience that-^w cannot 
stand in need of manij. consolers, or the assistance of lovers 
to supplij the absence or neglect of your husband. At pre- 
sent any etl'orts of yours, from idleness or a heated imagi- 
nation, to obtain pleasure or force nature, may be injurious 
to your own health and destroy the fcetus- A plain diet, 
simple nourishment, calming and cooling liquors, with mo- 
derate but frequent exercise, are more necessary for your 
vyelfare than the tclc-d-tcte or embraces of all the most 
handsome, elegant, and powerful beaux in the universe. 
For my sake, as well as for your own, spare yourself, and 
do not indulge a momentary gratification, which may cause 
eternal regrets or instant death. What would become of 
me^ of your brother, whom you love so affectionately, was 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



133 



any passionate ctourderie or foolish caprice to bereave us of 
our sole support? You know that all the Buonapartes envy 
and detest us. Depend upon it, that any imprudence of 
yours at this moment may make you not only a fratricide 
but a matricide ; and instead of living the pride, preserver, 
and protector of your mother and brother, die their assas- 
sin and executioner. Some few weeks more patience, and 
when once you are safely delivered, depend upon it that 
you shall again find in me the same most mdulgent and 
atfectionate mother and friend." 

Never a princess or a favourite mistress of a sovereign 
existed who was so eager to' seize wealth and to obtain 
every thing as the Empress Josephine. She always accepts, 
and often extorts, presents or money from all persons who 
demand her protection, or who owe to her their promo- 
tions, places, or pensions. She hasher fixed price for each 
office m the empire, from that of a senator to that of a 
clerk, from that of a cardinal to that of a curate. The 
recommendation of a law-suit or the release from a state 
prison, contracts for the navy or army, or commissions for 
the colonies, have all their regulated prices in her imperial 
tarifi'. If this be contrasted with the unheard-of prodi- 
gality by which her husband enriches her children and his 
own brothers and sisters, it can only be explained either 
by supposing all the French and Italian members of the 
family infested with the meanest and most insatiable ava- 
rice, or by imagining in them a due sense of their preca- 
rious situation, a design to be at all events prepared lor 
the worst, and to possess means to command respect from 
their affluence, should they survive the destruction of the 
power of Napoleone, to which alone, and not to their ta- 
lents, they owe their rank and distinction. 

Arrived at Mentz, the empress and her husband found 
plenty of food for vanity, as well as abundance of prey 
for cupidity. The oldest legitimate reigning prince from 
age, i^.nd the most respectable by character, the venerable^ 
Elector of Baden, the grandfather of the Empress of Rus-. 
sia, of the Queen of Sweden, and of the Electress of Bavaria, 
had, at fourscore, by the unrelenting and barbarous Corsi- 
can, been forced to attend there. Instead of obtaining 
redress in his rights as a sovereign for the outrage com^ 
mitted in his territory by the seizure of the Duke of Eng- 
hicn, or any relief to his feelings as a man, a friend, and a 



134 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

christian, for the murder of this princely hero, he was 
under the necessity of dancing attendance at the levees of 
the assassin, bowing in the drawing-room of his strumpet, 
and waiting^ in the anti-chambers of his ministers and sa- 
traps, the instruments of his cruelty and the accomplices 
of his guilt. The elector arch-chancellor, though deserv- 
ing, on account of his Gallo-raania, less pity, was subject 
to the same insulting, and, to his exalted station, unbe- 
coming, humiliations. Besides these, many other inferior 
German princes and, nobles, their wives, their sons, their 
counsellors, and favourites, volunteered their high rank in 
this race of ignominy and degradation within the ramparts 
of Mentz. Here, instead of being ashamed of their base- 
ness, they seemed proud of their infamy. The revolution- 
ary empress faithfully depicts those loyal visitors, those 
heroes of the genealogies of sixteen centuries. 

*' Mentz, Wednesday. 

** The journey from Coblentz, beloved child, though 
through a wild country, on bad roads, and among a peo- 
ple with whose language I am unacquainted, was, never- 
theless, very agreeable. As usual, I was feasted every 
where, addressed every where, petitioned every where, 
and prayed for every where. Every where they did the 
best in their power to please me; and being the object of 
all their attentions, it w^ould ill become me to blame well 
meaning ignorance, or to hold good intentions up to ridi- 
cule. Happy in knowing my Napoleone content, persons, 
as well as things, shewed themselves to me in an agreeable 
form, in an enclianting view. Rags inspired me with no 
disgust, precipices with no fear, and the darkest forests with 
no melancholy. All nature seemed to dance round me, 
and I heartily shared in the general joy. 

" I believed that I had seen at Aix-la-Chapelle enough 
of the pride and meanness, ostentation and poverty, am- 
bition and imbecility, of some of the great folks from the 
other side of the Rhine, to judge tolerably of their national 
character; but the scene presented to me here is not only 
new and variegated, but surpasses what the most fertile 
imagination can invent, and the most inventive genius ima- 
gine or produce. When I am surrounded by my German 
visitors here, 1 think myself, from their dress, gait, and 
manners, among our fas;hionable gentry of the sixteenth 



• 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 135 

and seventeenth centuries, so diflerent are they from the 
former courtiers at Versailles, and from ours at the Thuil- 
leries. 

" No person can he introduced to me or to the emperor 
without previously iiaving })roved to Talleyrand, that from 
his birth or rank he is worthy of such an honour. This 
etiquette was necessary, to prevent hundreds of German 
.9ai;rz7w-sansculotte and sansculotte-6«i-a7w, thousands of beg- 
garly German patriots, illumhmti^ and other revolutionists, 
without probity, as well as without capacity, from intrud- 
ing upon us; and under pretence of having plotted or 
written for the French revolution, demand rewards, claim 
pensions, and ask for protection and support in their pre- 
sent plots against their own soveieigns. Five waggon 
loads of this patriotic or rebellious crew were, by our po- 
lice commissary, exported early this morning to Cassel. 
The patriotism of the vile Irish raggamufiins in our pay, 
has perfectly cured Napoleone of ail inclination to encou- 
rage patriots of other countries to settle in France. I am 
therefore sure to converse here only with gens comme U 
fmit, who all, however, take care to let me understand 
that they are so. After two minutes conversation with the 
young prince of S. he said, " My ancestors have long been 
attached to France, the}^ even fought under St. Louis in 
Palestine." The emphasis with which bespoke, convinc- 
ed me that he only repeated a lesson of his vain mamma; 
T, therefore, perhaps rather maliciously, determined to 
iiumble, not him but his preceptor. " Sir," observed I, 
" being ail descendants from the same parent, Adam, I 
am inclined to think, that we have all the same number of 
ancestors, and that few, if any, iamilies exist, that had not 
some of their former members who, from an absurd fana- 
licism, fought or bled in the pretended sacred wars." He 
seemed cor. fused, and I have not since heard of the boast- 
ing of ancestry, or the exploits of ancestors. 

" I wish that I could persuade my Napoleone to show 
himself above the prejudices in favour of birth, and declare 
to all these proud and pompous idiots who glory in the 
merits of others, having none themselves: " I Napoleone 
the First, Emperor of the French, ccc. &c. am the son of 
an humble sansculotte : you, with your brilliant and ancient 
parentage, are all at my feet, n:iy petitioners, nay, my 
valets. It depends npo*i me to make you sovereigns, or 



136 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

to continue you my slaves ; to indemnify your cringing 
^vith a principality, or to commiserate your poverty, by 
giving you, from charity, a commission in my corps of 
guides. I do not ask who were your forefathers, but what 
are your own achievements to deserve the rank you desire, 
or the property after which you seem so greedy." Unfor- 
tunately, my husband is as proud of lus nobility as any 
German. A Bavarian philosopher taking advantage of this 
weak side of his, presented him with a curious genealogy, 
which makes it clear as day, that the Buonapartes were 
seven hundred years ago rich and powerful nobJes in Tus- 
cany. My Napoleone rewards like an emperor. Five hun- 
dred Louis-d'ors were given the Bavarian for his discovery. 
Another German genius has offered me to prove that my 
family name, de la Pagerie, originates from a favourite 
page of Charlemagne, a thousand years ago, one of whose 
descendants was aide-de-camp to Coiun»bus in his discovery 
of America, and hence our possessions in the VV^est Indies. 
I declined the honoijr, and with the loss of ten Louis, got 
rid of a forger, fool, and impostor, and my ancestry re- 
niain in statu quo. Far be it from me, however, to blame 
the em.peror; he has too great a soul not to despise all ar- 
tificial grandeur. Policy, in present circumstances must 
require that he should condescend to count birth any 
thing. 

" How you would have, smiled with contempt or pity, 
had you witnessed the behaviour at the emperor's review, 
or in my circle, ot these birth-proud gentry! Their rivalry 
to watch every one of liis words, and to catch every one of 
his looks, was truly ridiculous. As at a word of command, 
or a given signal, they were all ready to faint when he 
frowned, and to kneel when he smiled. You will conclude 
from this, thai the branchesof the adulation family are very 
extensive, and have taken root on the right as well as on 
the left side ot the Rhine. 

" My campaign on the banks of this river has been suc- 
cessful beyond my most sanguine expectation. Not only 
my cofters are full, but Tarue is on hi;? way to Paris with 
good bills of exchange, for sums su(hc"ent. to make the 
most precious c'^.oices and purchases in the jewellers' shops, 
both in thy Palais Royal, in the Rue St. Honore, and on 
the Quay c/' Orfavre, Thanks to my Napoleone, I have 
really already gathered and housed here a golden harvest. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 137 

It has, nevertheless, cost him nothing but promises, which 
chance, fortune, and time, may carry into effect, or make 
impracticable to fuHil. But I am not the only one who 
has profited by his good nature. Talleyrand and his agent, 
by their political transactions, and Fouche and his agent, 
by their adroitness at the gambling tables, have not only 
entirely emptied the pockets of the poor Germans, but 
have extorted bills which they will hardly be able to pay, 
and mortgages which, if paid, will ruin their posterity for 
ages. I do not approve of such selfish and interested acts, 
so contrary to the laws of hospitality, and to the known 
French generosity. 

*' Yesterday I passed a very un pleasing quarter of an 
hour. With an irony of which I w^ell know the meaning, 
as well as the danger, my husband said to me, " Count de 
L , I dare say, is not a favourite of yours?" I di- 
rectly assumed those looks of innocence which you have 
so often admired, answering, " that the count had indeed 
twice obtained from me private audiences, but his whole 
conversation turned on oi^e single topic, how, through my 
recommendation, to gain your kind assistance to be elected 
a coadjutor to his uncle, the elector arch-chancellor. My 
dear, retorted he kindly, such a step would alienate from 
me Austria, with whom, for certain reasons, 1 must for a 

year or two, live upon good terms; but Count de L 

is an insinuating man, and malicious tongues are very busy; 
I therefore have asked his uncle to send him back to Ra- 
tisbon. He fixed his eyes on me to discover if this step 
vexed me; fortunately, the count had, by a confidential 
friend, informed me of it ; and I therefore said with indiffer- 
ence, " so much tTie. better, I am glad to 1* delivered fronn 
his importunities." You see that the daemon of jealousy 
still sometimes torments him; this makes me remember 
the fable of the dog and the hay-stack. Two persons only 
knew of my secret interviews with the count : uncertain 
which of them has betrayed me, I am under the necessit}^ 
and shall take the first opportunity, of dismissing them 
both. I pay my attendants too well, to let want tempt 
them to sell themselves to my husband, and become his 
spies on me. Upon the whole, however, the emperor is 
vrell satisfied, and of more even temper than he has beeu 
for a long time. And can he be otherv/ise, having the 

S 



135 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH, 

Pope's promise to crown him an emperor of the French^ 
the certainty of being, when he likes, proclaimed a king 
of Italy, and even an mfaJUhh prospect of one day unit- 
ing wilh these diadems the imperial crown of Germany. 

*' You know, my beloved child, that we are such ma- 
chines, that when th€ mind is not at ease, the body always 
suffers. Restore happiness and tranquillity of soul, corpo- 
real complaints will soon cease. My health is now better 
than it has been for years ; Doctor Napoleone has cured 
me entirel3% 

" Your approaching ^c(?ozfc/ze?we«^ will hasten our return 
to the capital, t shall present you a collection, rare in its 
kind, of upwards of five hundred poems, addressed to me 
by the wits on both sides of the Rhine. Deschamps is ar- 
ranging them, and adding notes to them. They may serve 
as models for poetical flatterers of all countries, and of all 
times. Their extravagance or absurdity, I am convinc- 
ed, will l>e an entertainment for you during the tinic 
you are obliged to keep your bed. I embrace you all af- 
fectionAtely." 

It must make every partial observer, as well as every 
friend of rational freedom, revolt to think that in France, 
persons on the eminence where Madame Buonaparte iv<i 
fseated, alone seem to discover the littleness of the world 
below, and the folly or wickedness of those who try by 
every art and vileness, to soar above their fellows. The 
tyrant is less to be blamed for his oppression and despot- 
ism, if, from being encompassed by base, selfish, shame- 
less flatterers and hungry slaves ; if, by being greeted by 
an abject rabble, dreaded and belied by all, as far as his 
eyes can reacli^ he despises mankind, and judging them 
after Frenchmen, he thinks them incapable and unworthy 
of genuine liberty. By such homages, execrably ofi'ered 
him, by mean and contemptible beings on all sides, and 
not interrupted by one single sound of reproach or just re- 
monstrance, the intoxicated fortune's tool loses himself, 
and forgets that by terror he has stifled the voice of truth. 

Was there a man found in his extensive dominions who 
had spirit and patriotism enough to speak out? It looks, 
however, as if the moral depravity of Buonaparte's sub- 
jects has banished from among them all energy, and ex- 
cluded from their bosoms all honourable sentiments. Such 
is, in consequence, their degraded condition, tliat the most 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 139 

resolute among the brave, and the most artful among the 
cunning, will now bend their knee to the tyrant, whose 
fury inflicts an equal punishment on the man who spoke 
freely, or the bravado who drew his dagger on the patriotic 
writer, or the dastardly conspirator, who v^^ith eager and 
revengeful looks, is more watching for the moment when 
he can poison or stab the patriot than dispatch the assas- 
sin. Nevertheless, if the daring, and hitherto prosperous 
usurper be not the most crafty among the insidious, the 
most watchful among the suspicious, and the quickest to 
punishment among the revengeful, he will not be secure 
against the embrace of a treacherous Judas, who may give 
the signal for his destruction. Nay, be he ever so vigilant 
and observant, still he may, in the pretended embrace, 
meet his doom. IJe knows it. — Dreadful existence! 

On her return to Paris, the empress was chiefly occu- 
pied to arrange her dresses, and to regulate the fetes for her 
coronation. Her whole wardrobe was renewed, and after 
many long consultations with her husband, and with Tal- 
leyrand, and Segur, another ceremonial was ordered to be 
introduced, and another etiquette to be observed at her 
court, as well as at that of the emperor. It was determined 
that no person except Buonaparte, not even her son or 
daughter, could address her singly with the appellation of 
" Madame," without adding immediately, " your imperial 
majesty." No person, except the members of the imperial 
family, could for the future be admitted at her table, and 
they only when invited. The distance between her chair 
and theirs should always be four French feet. They were 
not to speak but when asked, and their answers were to be 
short and respectful. Under pain of incurring the em^ 
press's displeasure, they were prohibited ever to smile in 
iier presence, and should they forget their duty so much as 
to laugh, they exposed themselves to be forbid the courts 
and even to be exiled. They could never sit down in a 
room with her without first being permitted, or ordered to 
do so. Even if invited to her private parties, they v^ere 
to be in full dress. All conversation, or even whispering 
among themselves, at her court must be laid aside ; all their 
attentions should be to pay their devoirs and homage to 
their sovereign, from whom they were never to withdra\y 
their looks, which were to accompany her in all her turna 
jQX movements, obseruhig always to face her, Thtp princes 



140 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

and princesses of the blood were commanded, in entering^ 
or leaving the empress's apartments, to make three bows 
or courtesies in no less time than a minute, always stoop- 
ing as low as if her majesty permitted them to kiss her 
hand. The senators, and all other public functionaries, 
together with prefects, colonels, bishops, and judges, with 
their wives, should make the same number of bows and 
courtesies, but as low as her majesty's knees, and in no less 
time than two minutes. All other persons of inferior rank 
who were admitted at court, should make their bows and 
courtesies rather lower and in a kneeling position upon one 
knee, in which position they should remain until her ma- 
jesty gave them a signal to stand upright. No gentleman 
of an inferior rank to that of a colonel could kiss her ma- 
jesty's kand, and no lady of less distinction than the wife 
of a general of brigade could have that honour. With 
regard to foreign ambassadors, their ladies, and country- 
men of rank, the same etiquette would be observed as at 
the courts of the Empresses of Germany and of Russia. 

As he had promised, Segur recruited persons for the dif- 
ferent offices and places at ^ler court. Being unsuccessful 
among the French nobility upon the whole, he tilled the 
vacancies with the ladies of some German nobles of the 
provinces on the French side of the Rhine, and resorted 
even to women nameless, as well as shameless and disgrace- 
ful. By the side pf Madame D'Arberg, by birth a Ger- 
man countess, figures therefore Madame Lasnes, who was 
picked up by her husband in a brothel, and lived with him 
as a mistress for two years before he was divorced from hi^ 
former wife to marry her. 

The follov/ingis the official list of persons of both sexes 
in the principal places at tlie empress's court, and of her 
household : 

Thejirsi Almoner. 

M. Ferdinand de Rohan, late archbishop of Cambray. 

Maid of Honour. 

lyiadame Chastule la Rochcfoucault. 

Lady in Waiting. 

Madame Laval ette. 

Ladies of the Palace. (Dames du palais.) 

Madame Delucay, Madame Lasnes, 

^ladame Remusat, ^ladame Duchatel^ 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 141 

Madame Baude de Tallouet, Madame Seran, 
Madame Lauriston, Madame Colbert, 

Madame Ney, Madame Savary, 

Madame D'Arberg, Madame Octave Segur. 

"* First Chamberlain, 

The General of Division Nansouty. 

Chamberlains. 

M. de Beaumont, introductor of ambassadors. 

M. Hector Daubuson la Feuillade. 

Master of the Horse, 

Senator Harville. 

Equerries. 
Colonel Fouler. 
General Bonarde de St. Sulpice. 
Secretary. 
M. Deschamps. 
Council. 
The council of state of the empress's household is com- 
posed of 
The majd of honour. 
The lady in waiting, 
The first chamberlain. 
The master of the horse. 
The lord chamberlain of the emperor's household, M. 
Claret de Fleurieux, a counsellor of state, and the empress's 
secretary Deschamps. 

All these great matters, of great consequence for a revo- 
lutionary court, w^ere hardly adjusted and finally promul- 
gated, when the empress was ordered to accompany her 
husband in a revolutionary pilgrimage to Fontainebleau, to 
meet a trembling pontitV, whom the treachery of bribed 
counsellors had sent to France, there to dishonour his grey 
hairs, by becoming the sacrilegious tool of an atheistical 
usurper, the most wicked of men, the most unprincipled 
of vagabonds, the most audacious of upstarts, and the most 
atrocious of tyrants. 

The manner in which Josephine was selected and blessed 
by his holiness; how she confessed her sins and obtained 
absolution ; how devoutly she kneeled, how piously she 
prayed ; how she reformed her habits, silenced her passions, 
and quieted her conscience; how she edified by her exam- 
ple, and seduced by her edification, and how her confessor 



142 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

was near becoming her admirer, are all those sacred and 
family secrets, of which the less is said the better. What 
is known, and can be no injury to her honour to make bet- 
ter known; what can neither hurt her virtuous character, 
iior give any scandal to the morals of those i;//*/^«ow/people 
she governs, is, that her virtuous and magnanimous hus- 
band, the same day that she returned to Paris, sent one of 
his military aids-de-camp first to the Temple, and from 
thence to Cayenne, upon suspicion that he had been an 
uninvited domestic and conjugal aide de major. 

Whether this anecdote originates in authenticity, or is 
invented by envy or malignity, it is an undeniable fact, 
that near two months elapsed before the tender-hearted 
Napoleone could forgive his no less tender-hearted moiety 
some supposed mistake. It may be, that the many anony- 
mous and thrci^tening letters with which relatives and 
friends, rivals or enemies amused themselves to torment 
his revolutionary majesty, kept up his imperial sansculotte- 
anger, troubled his innocent soul, and perturbed his pure 
heart ; but even on the glorious 2d of December, 1S04, 
the day of the solemn mockery of his mock coronation, he 
was cross, fearful, ill-humoured, and agitated. He looked 
suspicious and agonizing; treating his dear Josephine as if 
he intended to vent all bis wrath upon her for dreading 
assassins, for expecting death, or apprehending a gibbet. 
With looks more than words he worried her, teazed her, 
provoked her, and insulted her, even in the presence of the 
revolutionary pontiff, his revolutionary cardinals and 
clergy, and of all the foreign, princely, and noble revolu- 
tionary amateurs. During a ceremony of eight hours, 
poor Josephine was in an uninterrupted fever. She trem- 
bled for fear her imperial husband should be murdered in 
the church, or that he would murder her at their return to 
the palace ; that she or he would cease to outlive that very 
day that they were inaugurated to reign ; that the celebra- 
tion of their coronation would be chanoed into a funeral 
service; their imperial throne into a funeral pile; and 
that the pontiff, put into requisition to organize their ele- 
vation, would be prevented even from pronouncing their 
apotheosjs. 

This explains why all the principal performers at the 
cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, were so little at their 
/ease on that great occasion, and v/by they committed so 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 143 

many blunders. Even at their return to the Thuilleries, 
they looked at each other; they gaped ; they stared with 
surprise, with astonishment. Their silent loquacity seem- 
ed to gj'onounce. Am I alive? Art thou alive? Is he alive? 
Are \^'alive? Are you alive ? Are they alive? After hav- 
ing for ten minutes first passed each other in review, and 
then nearer reconnoitred each other, they became more 
confident of present existence, if not tranquil about its 
future continuance. Their dinner, however, passed over 
without any appetite; their concert without relish; their 
illuminations were unnoticed < their fire-works unregarded; 
their supper untouched; their night restless; troubled with 
dreams, plagued with remorse, and terrified with visions, 
which for once made the imperial couple conclude that 
thrones are more easily seized by guilt and fraud, preserv- 
ed by force and crime, than occupied with tranquillity and 
real enjoyment. The most elevated, they were also the 
most miserable in their empire. 

The next day a council of conscience was held, at which 
the emperor and the empress, the pope, six cardinals, four 
archbishops, and three bishops, together with the ministers 
Talleyrand and Portalis, assisted. This latter acted as 
secretary. Many cases of conscience and conscientious 
cases were that day proposed, debated, discussed and setr 
tied, during a sitting of six hours. The principal deter- 
mination was, that another marriage ceremony was rbso- 
lutely necessary to make Napoleone and his Josephine 
lavi^ful husband and wife. It was acknowledged that they, 
as well as all other inhabitants of France, who had been 
coupled together according to the revolutionary laws> 
were not married in this world, though they run the risk 
of being damned in the next. To avoid, however, nume- 
rous law-suits, with fatal and cruel consequences both to 
parents and children, it was resolved to keep this determi- 
nation secret. But, according to the Pope's requisition, 
Portalis was to write confidential letters to all French pre- 
lates, that they might send monitories to the clergy of 
their dioceses, exhorting them to make it a scruple to 
confess, or at least to absolve those of their parishioners 
who have been married since 1793, and refuse to re-mar- 
ry again according to the rights of the Roman catholic 
church. 

To set an example of submission to the decrees of his 



144 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

holiness, Napoleone Buonaparte and Josephine de la Page- 
rie, widow of Viscount de Beauhavnois, were re-married 
on the 6th of January, 1805, and Pius VIL gave them the 
nuptial benediction in his private chapel of the Pav^ion of 
Flora, in the palace of the Thuilleries, twelve yearsbefore 
inhabited by the harlot who was worshipped by the truly 
religious French republicans as a Goddess of Reason. The 
act of marriage was signed by the Pope, by the elector, 
arch-chancellor of Germany, and by eight cardinals, with 
the different princes of the Buonaparte hlood. The former 
and municipal wedding of the imperial couple, had, on the 
Sth of March, 179(3, been celebrated with different pomp, 
in the presence of persons of different descriptions. The 
municipal officer and Septembriser Panis, had joined their 
immaculate hands, and the butcher Septembriser and regi- 
cide Legendre, the Septembriser and regicide Tallien, and 
the regicide Ex-viscount Barras had signed the municipal 
registers as witnesses of their union, worth, and affection. 
From the hall of the municipality, they went to dine in 
the then directorial palace of the Luxembourg, where 
Barras presented Buonaparte with his wife's fortune, the 
commission as commander in chief of the army of Italy. 
In a week afterwards, Madame Buonaparte was delivered 
of a still-born child — a dead-born Barfas! 

Much might be said on these curious occurrences, and 
many conclusions drawn not honourable to our age, to the 
parties, and particularly to the nation that has suffered, 
and still suffers itself to be the play-ball of every villain 
in power, of his interest, vices, and passions. But discussi- 
ons of such a nature appertain to historians : they require 
too wide a space for the biographer. 

As soon as Napoleone's and Josephine's new marriage 
was performer!, Joseph and Louis Buonaparte, Bacchiochi, 
and Murat, and all other relatives of the Buonapartes, 
were re-married by the Pope. Even Talleyrand w^as sud- 
denly seized with scruples which his holiness alone could 
remove, and the ex-bishop was also for a second time mar- 
ried to his chaste spouse. The fashion of re-marrying af- 
terv/ards spread quickly among the French republican 
tiger-monkies. It was a golden harvest^time for the French 
clergy. Those of all classes of Frenchmen, whom motives 
of religion did not influence, were, to avoid ridicule or 
pontempt, under the necessity of imitating their neigh- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. Us 

bours, whom faith sent to the altar. It became in the 
highest degree unfashionable to live together without a 
new wedding, and it is well knoWn that fashion sways 
every thing among the fickle and corrupted French. 
Within six months, 52,000 couples were i*e-married at 
Paris and in the department of the Seine, and a hundred 
times that number in the diiferent provinces. What a 
people! 

The feafsting and dancing usual on such occasions en- 
tered not a little into this matrimonial rage. Nothing was 
heard of in France, from January to March, 1805, but 
Wedding-dinners and nuptial-balls. It may easily be guess- 
ed that Buonaparte did not interrupt the rejoicings of his 
slaves, as long as they did not attempt to shake off the 
yoke or complain of the weight of their fetters. No pub- 
lic feast was, however, given at the Thuilleries on this oc- 
casion, but Josephine was permitted to invite to a private 
or family ball at Malmaison, his brothers, sisters, and some 
select favourrtes. A trifle here caused a coolness betv/een 
him and his brother Joseph, and his sister the Princess 
Santa Cruc'e. He supposed or suspected them of not hav- 
ing admired his adroitness in dancing, and his complacency 
to dance with persons whom he regarded so much beneatli 
him. The fact was, however, that Buonaparte having 
learned to dance at the common \vine-houses in Corsica, 
is a very aukward dancer; and in seeing him jump about, 
tread upon the feet of his partner, kick one neighbour, 
tear the dress of another, and put all m confusion, it is 
more difficult to refrain laughing than to express admira- 
tion. At all these balld, where he thus has exhibited him- 
self, the pleasure expected has been changed into disap- 
pointment. To many persons, orders of exile, mandates 
of imprisonment, and condemnations to transportation have 
shortly followed his cards of invitation. He is a tyrant in 
the ball-room as well as every where else; and truth is 
excluded, and common sense must be laid aside there, as 
well as at his military reviews or diplomatic levees. Num- 
bers of anecdotes are related and have been published oni 
this subject, even when he was a first Consul. 

In the winter of 1S03, Madame Buonaparte had a small 
party at Malmaison, where he ventured to dance with his 
dear step-daughter, Madame Louis Buonaparte. As usual, 

T 



U6 REVOLUTIONARY PLtJTAlicil. ^ 

his performance was ridiculous, and, as usual, he found an 
opportunity of shewing his despotic and unfeeling hearts 
When it came into his head to dance, he took off his sword 
and offered it to the next by-stander without looking at 
him. This person happened unfortunately to be a man of 
birth and an officer of rank, who thought it against the 
point of honour to accept it, and therefore stepped back 
to wait till one of the servants might come and take \U 
Observing this act of becoming dignity, IheCdrslcan usur- 
per looked kt the officer sternly, and said in a terrible 
hoarse kind of voice, " Mais out ! Je'me suis bien trompe,'* 
He then made a sign to General La Grange, on whose rea- 
diness he could depend, and gave him the sword^ which this 
cringer siiatched with great eagerness. When the too 
punctilious officer returned home he already found an 
order, by which he Was directed to depart on the next day 
for St. Domingo. La Grange, on the other hand, was made 
a grand officer of the legion of honour, and in 180^, ob- 
tained the profitable, though not very honourable, place of 
leader of the gang of freebooters Buonaparte sent to 
plunder the British West India islands. The usurper has 
no favourite near his person, and no man in his service, 
who, with the livery of bondage, does not also possess the 
soul of a slave. 

As the revolutionary gentry admitted to these private 
parties have always IJeen proposed by Madame Buonaparte 
before approved of by her husband, he often bestowed 
upon her abuse for What displeased or offended him in 
their behaviour. To avoid suffering from their disgrace 
in future, she, with the advice of her privy-counsellor, Ma- 
dame Remusat, determined, in February, 1805, in sending 
him the usual list of persons proper for her private society, 
always to write at bottom : " This list contains names of 
gentlemen and ladies knoWn to you as Well as to myself, 
and I believe agreeable to us both, and deserving your par- 
ticular distinction: but Temejnber, that I recommend nobody* 
Approve, therefore, of them or disapprove of them, erase 
the names of some or of them all, you shall punctually be 
obeyed. I have no favourites, no companions, as far as I 
know, who do not merit and have your esteem and confi- 
dence." As the Coi-sican regarded this clause as an indi- 
rect reproach, he ordered his wife to give up the adviser to 
just chastisement, or to rejtire immediately for thrice 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY, 147 

twenty-four hours to her private apartments at Malmaison, 
where he prohibited her from seeing any company what- 
ever. She chose the latter. Her daughter, Madame Louis, 
going to pay her a visit, and being refused admittance, sus- 
pected the cause, and immediately went to St. CJoud, with 
an intent of becoming a reconciler or mediator ; but her 
generous father-in-law ordered her back to her hotel at 
Paris without seeing her. She then addressed herself to 
Cardinal Caprara, who, at times, has much authority over 
his revolutionary majesty; but even he failed on this occa- 
sion. He, however, applied to the Pope, who with much 
difficulty succeeded in arranging this great state affair. 
This is another evidence of the generous heart and/org/u- 
ing temper of Napoleone Buonaparte. To reconcile him 
to a beloved wife, a favourite daughter and a favourite 
courtier in vain empolyed their supplications. His abom- 
inable vanity required that a favourite pontiff should agairi 
forget his sacred character, and ask as a favour what his 
predecessors would have scorned to notice, or commanded 
as a religious duty. Shame to France! and shame to 
Rome! a cardinal and a pope to be seriously engaged in 
settling differences between an adventurer and his strum- 
pet about a ball! The age when legitimate sovereignty 
held the stirrups for the popes in mounting their mules, 
was less disgraceful and depraved than our days, when a 
pope crowns and consecrates a criminal usurper and blood- 
thirsty murdurer, and afterwards stoops to kneel before 
this diabolical idol, created by his dangerous pliability and 
impolitic weakness. 

Early in the following month Josephine received notice 
to prepare herself for another coronation on the other side 
of the Alps. In one of the foregoing letters she has men- 
tioned her corr^pendence with the Queen of P 

during her residence at Aix-la-Chapelle in the summer 
3604. But, according to report, this princess was not the 
only lawful sovereign with whom her husband forced her 
to try by letters to establish equality and assume familiar- 
ity. The accomplished consort of the noble-minded Alex- 
ander, and amiable partner of the throne of the virtuous 
Francis II. were also insulted with letters and presents, 
with offers of lace gowns and other elegant productions 
of the same description, frail as their donor. The presents 
were, however, declined, as contrary to custom and ^ti- 



^43 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

guette; and, as usual with strangers, a secretary answered 
the letters in a civil but dignified style. According to the 
sanje publication, had the overtures for a peace with Eng- 
land been accepted by our government last January (1805), 
the modest Josephine had a lace gown ready fabricated, and 
a letter ready written to our beloved queen. This imper- 
tinent intrigue not succeeding, and Buonaparte having re- 
solved to degrade the kingly as well as imperial title by im- 
pertinetly usurping the name of a king of Italy, this lace 
gown was forwarded to the Queen Dowager of Etruria,with 
^n appropriate letter, pretended to be written by the em- 
press's own hand. The usurper had, ever since the death 
of her husband, fixed upon this princess for a victim of his 
ambition. He ^irst destined her to marry his brother Lu- 
cien ; but he having married, and being disgraced for hav- 
ing married a woman he loved, she was intended for the 
other hopeful brother of his, Jeromp Buonaparte. The 
republican parents of a female American citizen being, 
however, tormented with the absurd vanity of making 
their daughter a revolutionary highriess, he was disap- 
pointed a second time, Firiuly bent (after having robbed 
them of their throne) upon dishonouring the Bourbon fa- 
mily with his family connections, he put her Etrurian ma- 
jesty into requisition for his son-in-law, Eugenius de Beau- 
harnois. In the letter that accompanied the lace gown 
the empress Josephine hinted a disinter,ested wish " to 
strengthen those political ties which united the Queen 
Pegent of Etruria with France into a family alliance wit!) 
the house of the sovereign of the French empire." Euge^ 
"nius de Beauharnois was himself the bearer of this letter. 
Being properly instructed, he acted his part tolerably well, 
By bribes he gained several of the favourite courtiers at 
plorence, and by presents, malice says, that he even came 
to share the beds of some of the most intimate female 
attendants of the princess. All these worthies of course 
planned to give their sovereign a high opinion of their 
hero, who, when he believed that his friends had suffici- 
ently reconnoitred the ground, began the attack in person. 
*' He was dying of love, but this merely regarded himself, 
and was only a secondary object. The Avelfare and gran- 
deur of the sovereign and good people of Etruria were, 
and would always be, his principal and first consideration, 
jfhe study of his life." He then delivered another letter of 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 149 

his mother, in which she formally demanded the hand of 
the queen dowager for her son, olfering in return, or as an 
indemnity, not only her husband's guarantee of the inde» 
pendence of the kingdom of Etruria, but his promise to 
incorporate the island of Elba and the duchies of Parma 
and Plaisance with that kingdovn. 

Having long been prepared for such an insult to her fa- 
mily and rank, and being forewarned by her royal rela- 
tives, the Kings of Spain and Naples, particularly by the 
]atter, she toid Eugenius de Beauharnois, " that she would 
shortly return an answer to^ his mother's letter; frankly 
informing him that her mind was made up, and that she 
had fixed rather upon a retreat into a convent for the re- 
mainder of her days than to give her young son a father- 
in-law. Two days afterwards a letter to the Empress 
Josephine was put into his hands, and he departtd for 
Milan, where Buonaparte and his wife were daily ex- 
pected. 

No sooner had they entered this ancient capital of Lom- 
bardy, than they sent General Duroc to Florence, charged 
to invite the Queen Dowager of Etruria to assist at the 
approaching coronation ceremony. The excuse in her 
letter to the empress for npt uniting herself with de Beau- 
harnois had been couched in terms not to hurt the vanity 
even of the proudest. " The youth of her son, her remain- 
ing affection for her former husband, her family name, and 
the opinions of her royal relatives, were her motives for 
declining the honour offered. Real illness prevented her 
from accepting the invitation to Milan." 

Thus the usurper and his wife were prevented from 
seeing a princess of the house qf Bourbon for their daugh^ 
ter-in-l^W, and a queen dowager pf royal birth waiting in 
their anti-chamber and attending their circle or drawing- 
room. They took, however, a vengeance worthy of their 
noble minds. Ten thousand more French troops were or- 
dered into Etruria, and a loan of 6,000,00Q of livres, 
250,000/. was required under pain of military execution. 
Admonitory epistles, with revolutionary threats, were be- 
sides forwarded to their Spanish and Neapolitan majesties. 

Many persons both in France and Italy, notwithstanding 
this dignity on one side and anger on the other, are con- 
vinced that Buonaparte still conspires to disgrace tht Bour- 
bon family with his fratejnity or parentage. They think 



150 HEVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

that the Prince of Peace, another revolutionary upstart, 
will in due time either oblige her Etrurian majesty to be 
less delicate, or, in case of her obstinacy, dishonour and 
degrade some Spanish infanta by a marriage with Eugeniua 
de Beauharnois, or with some other of the low and guilty 
relatives of the infamous Buonapartes. 

During Josephine and her husband's journey to and from 
Italy, the greatest precaution was taken on the road to 
avoid assassins and to escape the machinations of conspira- 
tors. At every station where they changed horses were 
regular relays of gens-d*armes, of dragoons, of mounted 
riflemen, or of hussars, who delivered over, in the manner of 
state prisoners, to the detachments of each other's corps, 
the imperial couple. Buonaparte did not dance at Milan, 
but Josephine gambled there, to the great comfort of some 
female Italian sharpers of fashion. They pillaged her re- 
volutionary majesty of four millions of livres in cash and 
six on parole. They will probably be prudent enough not 
to reclaim the latter. Of the ready money lost, Talley- 
rand advanced two millions, for which he will obtain some 
future indemnity on Italy, Germany, Holland, or on the 
Hanse Towns. The other two millions her majesty had 
obtained from her Italian subjects as a free gift for her gra- 
cious protection, or for her disinterested recommendation 
to places in the Italian consulta, legislative corps, or legion 
©f honour. 

The theatre at Paris, formerly called Theatre de Lou- 
yois, is now baptised the Theatre of the Empress. The 
<iirector of this theatre, Picard, was rewarded with a revo- 
lutionary knighthood for the compliment, or rather flattery. 
In imitation of the capital, Lyons, Bourdeaux, Marseilles, 
^Strasbourg, and Brussels, intended to set up their theatres 
of the empress; but Buonaparte ordered his minister of 
police, Fouche, to inform the directoi's in those cities, 
** that where no theatre of the emperor existed, no theatre 
of the empress could be established, and that they had to 
be dutiful before they shewed themselves gallant.'- The 
usurper is envious and jealous, as well as fearful pf Ijis owjt 
shade. 

Buonaparte allows his wife as empress of the French, 
twelve millions of livres, and as a queen of Italy, five mil- 
lions. Her jewels are valued at sixty millions, her plate 
at ten millions, her furniture, pictures, &c. at Paris and in 



tHE BUONA'i^ARTE FAMILY. 151 

the country nine millions, her museum at Malmaison four 
millions, and her wardrobe, lace, &c. six millions. It is to 
be remembered, that her furniture is changed with the sea- 
son, her jewels and wardrobe according to fashions, which 
ih France vary oftener than the seasons. 

During the monarchy it was considered in France as a 
mark of gross ill-breeding to inquire aftera lady's age (that 
of the members of the royal family was always known) 
when she was supposed to be on the wrong side of twenty. 
The revolution seems not to have changed this custom. In 
the Imperial Court Calendar, Josephine is stated to have 
been born on the 24th of June, 17()8, when in fact the 
date of her birth is the 24th of June, 1758. This is easily 
proved : sh.e was married to her first husband in May, 
1778, and in March, 1779, she was brought to bed of a 
daughter, who died in a month. Her son Eugenius was 
born in August, 1780, tmd her daughter, Madame Louis 
Buonaparte, on the 10th of April, 1783. This is another 
official imposition deserving notice as well as reprobation. 
In France ever}?^ body knows that it is a falsehood ; but 
was Buonaparte to command it, out of his forty millions 
of subjects, thirty-nine millions voluntarily would come 
forward and affirm, nay swear, that it w^as an undeniable 
truth. The abject state of the French slaves is only sur- 
passed by the insolence and t3Tanny of their barbarous 
master. 






i52 



feuGENIUS DE BEAUHARNOIS. 



EuGENius i)E Beauhari^ois is a brutal unfeeling^, de- 
bauched young man, whom neither brilliant regimentals, 
the rank of his parents, nor the endeavours of his tutors, 
tould ever change or prevent from being considered (as 
Madame de P— said) " a real sans-culotte, with the ill- 
fitted mask of a gentleman; possessing the vulgar man- 
ners of one of the sovereign mob, with the pretensions to 
be respected as a man of consequence." At the age of 
twenty-two, he modestly prides himself on keeping no more 
than six mistresses : one of them, Mademoiselle Chameroy, 
an actress at the opera, was killed last year when in a state 
of pregnancy by his brutality. He boasts, that when his 
mother refuses to furnish money for his profusion and li- 
centiousness, by threatening her with the delicate appel- 
lation la vieille p — (an old w — ), he can command what- 
ever sums he wants. He lately presented Madame Clo- 
tilde, of the opera, with a watch set in daimonds, worth 
30,000 livres, to pass the night in her company, only to 
gratify the childish vanity of disappointing a Russian 
Prince, who (according to Les Nouvelles a la Main, from 
which this anecdote is taken) had already paid her two 
hundred Louis for the same night. In 1800 he went with 
his regiment through Besan9on ; and at the Hotel Na- 
tionale was detected in the bed of the landlady by her hus- 
band, who, after giving him a sound horse-whipping, and 
receiving his ecrin, or jewel-box, as a security for a bond 
of two thousand Louis-d'ors, permitted him to escape 
without broken limbs. The next day the national collector 
and departmental treasurer paid these two thousand Louis, 
and the jewels were restored. In this manner the econo^ 
mical j^overnment of the French Republic employs the 
plunder of foreign nations, and the money extorted from 
&ie enslaved and beggared French citizens. 



lo3 
f ANNY DE BEAUHARNOI^. 

DAUGHTER OF tHE ESIPRCSS. 



Fanny de Beauharnois is the very reverse of her pa- 
Vents and her brother: amiable, unassuming, loyal, and 
liberal. She was the victim of her mother's vanity and 
her father's ambition, when she married the stupid liber- 
tine, and ill-bred Louis Buonaparte. She had numerous 
suitors; but her heart was betrothed to a chief of the roj^- 
aiists, who", if alive, endures wretchedness in the wilds of 
Cayenne, as a consular chastisement for this preference. 
Even Napoleone himself, if he ever loved a woman^ loved 
Fanny de Beauharnois, or at least proved more than once 
that he was sensible of her beaut}^, ingenuousness, and in- 
nocence ; but scandal, as busy in France as any where 
else, dared not only to investigate, but to attack her pru- 
dence. She is a royalist from principle, and has often told 
her father-in-law how happy he icouJd make her hy recalling 
Louis XVIIL and re-establishing him as king of France 
and Navarre; and the ferocious usurper has smiled at a 
sally from her, which would have been instant death to any 
one else. Napoleone yet calls her his petite choiianne; 
and he does not conceal, that he intends in his will to de- 
clare her son by his brother the consular successor of his 
republican throne. 

Instead of squandering away upon dress, feasts, or gam-^ 
ing, the immense sums with which the First Consul pre- 
sents her, she allows annuities to several distressed families 
ruined by the revolution, and maintains and pays for the 
education of numbers of deserted children, who, like her- 
vself, have been made orphans by the republican guillo- 
tine. 

Madame Fanny de Beauharnois, or, as she is commonly 
called, Madame Louis Buonaparte, is as modest in her 
dress and her language, as beautiful in her person and ac- 
complished in her manners; and in a vicious, corrupted 
country, and at a still more vicious and corrupted courts 

U 



154 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

she has the courage to remain unpolluted and pure, and 
not to be ashamed either of her virtue or her loyalty. 

According to the Livre Rouge, by Bourrienne, Madame 
Napoleone has, besides payment of all the expencesofher 
wardrobe, &c. one million of livres yearly in pin-money; 
and her jewels, &c. are valued at only three millions, 
though it is well known they are of more than double that 
value. 

Eugenius de Beauharnois has an annuity of six hundred 
thousand livres. At the marriage of his sister, he received 
a present of three hundred thousand livres, six hundred 
thousand livres for his future establishment, and his debts 
were paid with one million two hundred thousand livres. 

Fanny de Beauharnois received at her marriage six hun- 
dred thousand livres ; at the birth of her child the same 
sum ; and the same sum is allowed her as an annuity, be- 
sides presents from the First Consul, estimated, at least y at 
one million of livres per annum. 



loo 
LUCIEN BUONAPARTE, 

BROTHER OF THE EMPEROR, 



A voir la splendeur peu commune 
Done unfaquin est revetu 
Diroit-on pas que 1^ fortune 
Veut faire enrager la vjrtu ? 

Let those who complain of the expeiices of royalty, who 
make economy an argument for innovation, and rank a 
reason for revolution ; who pretend that liberty is only 
found in republics, and morality and virtue hereditary in 
a commonwealth ; let such read the following short sketch 
of the life of a fashionable citizen in a modern republic; 
and then say what France has gained by a rebellion against 
its legal sovereign, and by changing an ancient monar- 
chy into a military tyranny, under the appellation of a 
republic. 

Lucien Buonaparte, the next younger brother to Napo- 
leone, the First Consul of France, was, in 1790, bound ap- 
prentice to a petty retail grocer at Bastia : for some pil- 
i^rings, he was turned away, and joined the Marseillois 
Brigands, who, on the 10th of August, 1792, took and 
plundered the Castle of the Thuilleries, and murdered the 
Swiss guards, after treason had forced the unfortunate 
Louis XVI. and his family to leave their habitation, and 
seek refuge in an assembly of rebels and regicides. 

As a reward for those civic transactions, Lucien was 
admitted a member in the clubs of the jacobins and of the 
cordeliers; and on the 2d, 3d, and 4th of September fol- 
lowing, assisted Marat's and Danton's patriots to purge the 
land of liberty of those aristocrats who were confined in the 
\different prisons in Paris, However young as to years, he 
\W2LS already so old in crime, that on the 21st of January, 
11793, he was one of Santerre*s chosen men, to guard the 
scaft'old on which his King was butchered. He was no less 
a favourite with Santerre's successor, Henriot, who had 
distinguished him at the plunders of the aristocratical gro- 
cers' shops in March 1793, and thei;efore enrolled him 



156 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

among those of Robespierre's sans-culottes , who forced the 
r^ational Convention, on the 1st of June in the same year, 
lo decree the arrest of their rival rebels of the Brissot 
faction. 

When the virtuous, the loyal, and religious, were con- 
fined in the dungeons of regicides and atheists, it was a 
profitable post for the vicious to guard them and see them 
to the scaffold. Henriot, therefore, made Lucien Buona- 
parte one of the gens-cCarmes, who, during the reign of 
Robespierre, watched his imprisoned victims destined to 
destruction, and who escorted them, after a mock trial, to 
the guillotine. At this ^ime Lucien had married a strum- 
pet of the corps called the Furies of the Guillotine ; wo- 
men who were paid forty sous a day to frequent the gal- 
leries of the Convention, of the clubs, and of the Revqlu- 
tionavy Tribunal, to applaud, hiss, or hoot, as ordered by 
Robespierre and his band of assassins; and finally to follow, 
abuse, and insult the perilous sent every day, en masse, from 
the Conciergerie prison to be butchered on the Place de la 
Revolution. What has become of this Madame Lucien, is 
the family secret of the Buonapartes. Some say that she 
died in La Saltpetriere (a Bridewell) ; others, that she is 
there still in confinement ; and others, that she ow^ed a 
premature death to the irregularities of her debauched 
husband. 

After the execution of Robespierre, Lucien, dreading a 
well-deserved punishment as one of his subaltern accom- 
plices, flsd from Paris to Nice, where his worthy brother 
Napoieone was under arrest as a terrorist. Here the Tou- 
lon assassin and the Paris Septembrizer fraternized toge- 
ther, until the general amnesty of the National Convention 
for all revolutionary crimes permitted the two hopeful 
brothers to return to Paris, the grand revolutionary thea- 
tre for ambition, intrigue, and guilt, to plot, to plunder, 
and to murder. 

Ever since the Revolution, amnesties have encouraged 
crimes by affording impunity, and new crimes have repeat- 
edly ;nade new amnesties necessary ; there is not one of 
the Corsican senators, counsellors, tribunes, and other reb^i 
functionaries, who are not indebted for their lives to one 
amnesty or other; who have not been in prison as crimi- 
nals, denounced as plunderers, proscribed as ass^ssjns, o\* 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 157 

outlawed as conspirators, by their victorious and factious 
accomplices. 

When Napoleone and Lucien, in the spring of 1795, 
went to Paris, such was their poverty, that they were 
obliged to make nearly the whole journey from Nice to 
Paris, 700 miles, on foot; and when at Paris, they occupi- 
ed together a miserable garret in Rile de Moiiffetarde, for 
50 sous (95 pence) per week. In revolutionary times, 
and in revolutionary countries, the distance is often the 
same from a garret to a throne, as from a throne to a scaf- 
fold. 

By Napoleone^s revolutionary connections with Barras, 
Tallien, and Freron, Lucien got a place with an annual 
salary of 000 livres, (25 pounds) as a clerk to a store- 
keeper at St. Maximin, in the South of France; where he 
married, against the consent of her parents, the daughter 
of an innkeeper, with a fortune of one hundred Louis-d^ors. 

For marrying the mistress of Barras, Napoleone had 
been promoted by him to the rank of General ; and for the 
murder of the Parisians on the 6th of October, 1795, he 
got the command of the army of the interior. Lucien 
was now appointed a war-commissary at Antwerp ; from 
which place he wrote a letter to another commissary at 
Cleve (published as a curiosity in the Gazette de Bas 
Rhine, May 1796), containing a most ridiculous account 
of Napoleone's first victory in Piedmont. In this stupid 
performance the jargon is revolutionary, the principles 
Jacobinical, and the sense, spelling, and orthography, that 
of a sans-culotte^ without education and without genius. 
How such a man could, in four years afterwards, be cho- 
sen a member of the National Institute, would be inex- 
plicable, had not Frenchmen of letters, during the whole 
French Revolution, been the first to desjrade learning by 
their base conduct, and to dishonour literary societies by 
electing for associates, rebels, traitors, regicides, and other 
ignorant and guilty upstarts. 

When the victories of Napoleone had made him pow- 
erful, and the pillage of Italy enriched him, he by degrees 
dragged forward the different members of his obscure, un- 
known, and despicable family. In the winter of 1796, 
Lucien, for the first time, appeared at Paris in other com- 
pany than that of sans-culottes \ but, with a true Corsican 
irjipudence, he soon caused himself to be remarked for his 



153 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

extravagancies, to be noticed as an unprincipled gamester, 
and despised as a debauchee. Such was, however, his 
know^n ignorance, that notwithstanding all his presump^ 
tion, and all the services of Napoieone, the Directory, in 
1797, was under the necessity of refusing him the place of 
secretary to the French embassy at the Congress at Ras- 
tadt. 

The Revolution of the 4th of September, 1797, made 
the jacobin faction again powerful ; and by its influence 
Lucien was, in 1798, elected a member of the Council of 
Five Hundred. During the absence of Napoieone in 
Egypt, Lucien associated only with jacobins, professed 
only their principles, and acted in every thing, and on all 
occasions, as one of their accomplices. He published an 
account of his revolutionary life, beginning with these 
words: Et mot aussi je suis jacobin, et moi aussi jai fak 
mes preuves comme jacobin, comme citoyen sansculottes. 
His absurd speeches, as a deputy, were as violent as his 
associates were vile; and when a new jacobin club was 
instituted, in the summer of 1799, he was chosen one of 
its first presidents. 

The flight of Napoieone from Egypt, and his return to 
France, neither changed Lucien's language nor his beha- 
viour ; he was therefore nominated president of tho Coun- 
cil of Five Hundred; and at the Revolution of the ISth 
of Brumaire, or 9th of November, 1799, by deserting the 
jacobins, he added treachery to his other crimes. 

The return of Buonaparte to France was inconsiderately 
bailed with exultation and rejoicing by all the friends of 
their country, who considered him as the determined foe 
of anarchy, and the support of regulated liberty ; where- 
ver he passed, ** Peace, Peace," resounded from every 
quarter, and his whole journey from Frejus to Paris was^ 
continued triumph or procession. The government by 
their odious exactions and oppression, had arrived at sucU 
a height of unpopularity that the necessity of a change 
seemed evident to every one; the only question was, how 
and by whom it was to be effected : the sudden return of 
Buonaparte put an end to the dilFiculty; for there is no 
doubt that Syeyes had suggested to Moreau the expediency 
of his overturning the old government, and putting him- 
self at the head of a new one ; but his modesty and love 
of ease caused liim to decline the proposal, and to name 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 159 

Buonaparte as a person better suited for such an achieve- 
ment. Had it pleased Providence to have given Moreau 
the ambition of Buonaparte, or Buonaparte the gentle na- 
ture of Moreau, it would have been fortunate for France 
and for Europe ! 

Immediatel}^ on his arrival at Paris, Buonaparte had a 
private audience of the Directory ; the courts and all the 
streets leading to the Luxembourg were crowded with 
spectators eager to behold him, and he seemed more sen- 
sible of these demonstrations of joy than formerly ; he 
shook several soldiers by the hand, who had served with 
him in Italy, and appeared more open and atfable in his 
manners than usual : he was dressed in a grey riding coat 
and without uniform, a Turkish sabre hung in a silk scarf 
over his shoulder, his hair was cut quite short and without 
powder ; his tawny complexion, acquired by the burning 
sun of Egypt, gave him an appearance of greater manli- 
ness and strength than before he left Europe. 

Buonaparte arrived at Paris on the 16th of October, and 
on the 9th of November the constitution of 1795 was 
overturned. During this period we must suppose him 
to have been employed in concerting measures for effecting 
li is grand purpose; accordingly very little is said of him, 
and he seldom appeared in public. On the 7th of Novem- 
ber a great dinner w^as given by the Directory and the 
councils to Buonaparte and Moreau in the church of St. 
Sulpice (then the temple of victory); the company consisted 
of 750 guests, and was no doubt intended to deceive those 
who w^ere so shortly to be overthrown, with an appearance 
bf friendship and fraternity. The toast given by the Pre- 
sident of the Directory was " Peace," and that by the ge- 
neral *' A union of all parties;" nevertheless it was evi- 
dent that this v/as a mere dinner of ceremony ; the whole 
company viewed each other with distrust ; there was nei- 
ther mirth nor confidence ; and though the meeting pre- 
tended to effect a union of parties, it served only to put 
them further asunder. Buonaparte quitted the room after 
a few toasts were given, and none of the company staid 
long; the whole ceremony did not last three hours, and 
within three days after, the great explosion which had 
been long preparing, burst forth ; nay on that very evening 
the mode of operation was concerted. Syeyes no doubt 
emitted the first spark, which iell upon Moreau, but was 



I' 160 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

1 1 damped by his unambitious temper. The next, however, 

I was more successful, for it lighted on Buonaparte, who 

instantly took fire and communicated the flame by degrees 
to a larger and a larger number, till on the 7th a number 
of deputies and others in the secret met at the house of 
le Mercier, and concerted measures for the grand display, 
which it was agreed should take place on the 9th ; and 
accordingly the committee of Inspectors belonging to the 
Council of Ancients, at five o'clock in the morning of that 
day, sent messages to a hundred and fifty chosen mem- 
bers of the council (very few of whom were in the secret) 
to meet at eight o'clock in the Thuilleries. When they 
were assembled it appeared that the most violent of the 
Jacobins, in number about a hundred, were left out. 
Cornet, reporter of the committee, opened the meeting 
with a speech, in which he stated very fully the dangers 
of the republic and the movements of the factious, and 
ended with proposing that the Assembly, according to the 
102d and 103d articles of the constitution, should adjourn 
to St. Cloud, that Buonaparte should be charged to put 
the decree in execution, and for that purpose appointed 
commander of all the troops in Paris, as well as of the 
guard of the assemblies and the national guard. This 
decree was passed by a great majority, and Buonaparte 
immediately appeared at the bar attended by Berthier,Mc- 
reau, Lefebre, Macdonald, and others. Being informed 
by the President of his appointment, he spake as follows: 
" The republic was on the brink of ruin, but your decree 
has saved it. Woe to those who wish for anarchy who- 
ever they be. I and my brave companions in arms will 
arrest their course. Let us not seek in the past for exam- 
ples to justify the present. For nothing in history resem- 
bles the conclusion of the ISth century, and nothing in 
that resembles the present moment. We wish a republic 
founded on liberty, on civil liberty, and national represen- 
tation, and we will have it. I swear it, and I sweur it also in 
the names of my brave comrades." " I swear it" was imme- 
diately returned by the other generals, and the sitting was 
dissolved amid the cries of " Long live the republic." The 
decree of the council was carried to the council of five 
hundred, who soon after adjourned their deliberations to 
the next day at St. Cloud. The committees of inspection 
from the two couucils remained in the room belonging to 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. I6i 

lliem, to concert measures as the urgency of afTairs might 
require, and Buonaparte assembled his stafl' at the same 
place, to give all the requisite orders for the preservation 
of tranquillity, and the removal of the councils to St. 
Cloud. The walls of Paris v»'ere soon covered with two 
proclamations, one addressed to the national ;?uard and the 
other to the troops of the line, both expressed with Buo- 
naparte's usual energy. On the first news of the decree 
of the Council of Ancients he had repaired to the Thuille- 
ries with ten thousand troops, and guarded every avenue 
to the place so effectually that^no one was permitted to pass 
either into the courts, the garden, or within the walls of the 
castle. He had formed all his dispositions, and harangued 
his troops in the great court, while three of the Directors 
and all the rest of Paris were completely ignorant of what 
was going forward. Syeyes and Roger Ducos, the latter 
of whom was entirely governed by the former, being both 
in the secret, waited in silence the result of the meet- 
ing. Syeyes was walking in the garden of the Luxem- 
bourg, and Ducos was in his own apartments, when they 
were informed of what had passed: they repaired imme- 
diately to the Thuilleries, and joined the two committees 
of Inspection, the generals, and the rest of the military, in 
deliberating upon the measures to be taken for putting the 
decree in execution, and providing for the public tran- 
<]uiUity. Barras knew what had happened long before his 
colleagues, Gohier and Moulins, for he had been required 
to give in his resignation very early in the morning, and 
the lady through whom the request came, was empowered 
to offer him any pecuniary assistance he might require: 
he at first appeared to be violently irritated, but in a little 
time he. became niore calm, and acknowledged that the 
government required some vigorous individual at its head, 
for it was impossible it could go Dn with five people who 
had no confidence in each other ; but still he refi'sed to 
give in his resignation. Gohier, Avho was that morning to 
have brealf fasted with Buonaparte, was extremely surpriz- 
ed when he got up to find what had passed, but particu- 
larly at the decree for transferring the assemblies to St. 
Cloud: he went, however, into the audience chamber of 
the Directory and sent for his colleagues. Moulins, who 
was equally surprised, came to him immediately ; but they 



165 REVOLUTIONARY PLtJTARCll. 

Were both still more so when they heard that Syeyes wa 
gone to the Thuilleries : they then sent for Ducos and 
found he was there also. Barras was summoned next, and 
he refused to come. Gohier sent immediately for La 
Garde the secretary general, and ordered him to register a 
decree which he dictated to him; but La Garde answered, 
that as two members could not make a majority of the 
Directory it was impossible for him to do as he requested. 
Moulins having now learnt part of what had happened, 
became extremely aq:itated, and proposed immediately to 
send a guard to invest the house of Buonaparte, and keep 
him a prisoner ; but he wsls told that it would be impossi- 
ble^ for every soldier then in Paris was under Buonaparte's 
command. General Lefebre was next summoned, but he 
confirmed what they had before heard, and said that as he 
was under the orders of Buonaparte he could not march a 
single man without his permission. They then began to 
ih}d that it was all over with them, and that nothing re- 
mL\ined for them but to retire into the obscurity from 
whence they had been taken, and submit quietly to their 
fate. In a few minutes the Luxembourg was invested with 
a strong guard sent there by Buonaparte. 

According to the terms of the constitution it was requi- 
site that the act for transferring the Assemblies to St. Cloud 
should be signed by a majority of the Directory; Gohier, 
therefore, being desirous to resign his power with a good 
grace, went to the Thuilleries and, adding his name to those 
of Syeyesand Ducos, performed the last act of his autho- 
rity ; yet still he seemed unwilling to part with liis dig- 
nity : he repented of what he had done, and when they 
came to demand of him the great seal of state which was 
in his possession, as President, he refused to give it up : as 
soon as he returned to the Luxembourg, where a strong 
guard was set over him^ill the 19th at night, he was told 
that the powers of the Directory had ceased, and a new 
government was formed. He asked to see the decree for 
appointing the Consuls, and after it was shewn,him he re- 
tired very quietly to his house at St. Chauimont. 

Moulins needed no very long intreaty to give in his re- 
signation, for fear had so completely got possession of him, 
after he found what had passed, that when a deputation 
was coming to him for the purpose, he jumped out of a 
window which looked into his garden and hid hitnself 



THE BUON^APARTE FAMILY. 



165 



among the bushes till lie could get quietly away ; but no- 
body went after him, they thought him of so little conse- 
quence.— A fit man to govern a nation ! 

After Gohier had signed the decree of translation, Sy- 
eyes and Ducos immediately gave in their resignation, and 
Barras soon after did the same by his secretary Botot, 
whom he sent to Buonaparte, and remained in his carriage 
near the Thuilleries till Botot returned with the result of 
the meeting. Buonaparte was in the apartment of the 
Inspectors when Botot desired to speak with him. He 
was introduced by Courtois, a,nd having given in the pa- 
per, requested to know if the general had any thing to say 
to his master. " Tell him," said Buonaparte, " that I de^ 
sire to hear no more of him, and that I trust I shall ever 
make the authority respected which is entrusted to me." 
Then raising his voice loud enough to be heard by the 
grenadiers who were standing at the door, said, " What 
have you done with the country which I left you so AoUt 
fishing ? I left you peace and I have found war. I left 
you victory and I have found defeat. I left you the trea- 
sures of Italy and I find nothing but oppression and po- 
verty. Where are the hundred thousand heroes, my com- 
panions in arms, whom I left covered with glory ? what is 
become of them? Alas they are no more ! This state of 
things cannot last long ; in three years it will end in des- 
potism. But we are ibr a republic, founded on a basis of 
equality, civil liberty, and political toleration. If you be- 
lieve the assertions of the factious, we are the enemies of 
the republic ; we who have strengthened it by our labours 
and cemented it by our blood ; but we wish for no better 
patriots than the brave men who have suffered in its ser- 
vice." This harangue was highly applauded by all who 
heard it, and Botot retired in confusion to acquaint his 
master with what had passed, Barras determined to go 
immediately to his country house, but being alarmed for 
his personal safety, he requested a party of horse to attend 
him, which was immediately granted. Syeyes and Ducos, 
not thinking it prudent to sleep at the Directorial Palace 
in the Luxembourg, staid all night in the Thuilleries. 

The next day, being the 10th of November, in conform- 
ity to the decree the two councils repaired to St. Cloud: 
the picture gallery was appointed for the Council of An- 
cients, and the orangery for the Council of Five Hundred. 



164 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

The troops had arrived before them and taken possession 
of every avenue to the castle, so that the deputies could 
not pass without shewing their medal, nor any other indi- 
vidual without producing a ticket signed by the committee 
of Inspection, and these tickets were few. The sitting, 
which had been appointed for twelve, did not commence 
till two o'clock, owin^ to the preparations of the workmen 
not being finished. The debates were opened by a speech 
from Gaudin, proposing a committee of seven members to 
take into consideration the best means of providing for 
the public safety ; and it was expected that this motion 
would have been immediately earned, but as the meeting 
was very fully attended, the jacobins gave it a strong and 
tumultuous opposition : this, in some measure, disconcert- 
ed the revolutionary party, and the fault was Buonaparte's; 
for it had been proj)osed the night before that no member 
should be admitted without producing a ticket signed by 
the inspectors, by which the jacobins would have been et- 
fectualiy excluded; but he opposed the measure, not sup- 
posing that the jacobins were so powerful : this had nearly- 
overturned the whole scheme, and given the victory to the 
opposite faction. Scarcely had Gaudin finished his mo- 
tion, when several members of the opposition darted for- 
ward into the tribune, all eager to be heard. The cry of 
*' Down with the Dictators," became geneial. Others ex- 
claimed, *' The constitution or death ; we are not afraid 
of bayonets, we will die at our post.'' And some propo- 
sed that every member should take afresh an oath to pre- 
serve the constitution. 'J'he other party were so much 
thrown otf their guard that the cry of " Long live the con- 
stitution" became general, and the motion for taking the 
oath was agreed to: this was a great victory for the jaco- 
bins, because it gave them time, which was all they wanted, 
for the ceremony of renewing the oath took up two hours : 
when this was over, various propositions were ottered and 
nothing settled; the confusion was now complete. Seve- 
ral motions were proposed and adopted, totally opposite 
to the intentions of those who had occasioned the renioval 
to St. Cloud. Barras sent a letter to the Assembly iui port- 
ing his resignation, yet couched in such guarded and am- 
biguous terms as seemed to intimate a desire to be employ- 
ed ill the new government, and the Ittter gave rise to a 
considerable debate, whether the Assembly should proceed 



THE BUONx\PARTE FAMILY. 165 

to the election of a new Director: great part, if not the 
whole of this confusion, arose from the defective measures 
of Buonaparte ; he had sutfered the majority of the mem- 
bers who were well disposed towards a change of govern- 
ment to come to the Assembly totally ignorant of what was 
intended; in consequence ot which they v/ere easily in- 
duced to believe the extravagant reports that were circu- 
lated by the opposite party ; and worst of all, he had 
prevented the exclusion of the jacobinSj who produced ali 
the confusion which had arisen. The danger now becailie 
imminent; the probability of insurrections being excited 
at Paris, and the consequent Janger of a civil war, requir- 
ed that some vigorous measures should be taken to com- 
plete the revolution so auspiciously commenced. Buona- 
parte hearing what had passed, became violently agitated; 
he hardly knew what to resolve, and perhaps was never so 
much otf his guard in the midst of a hattle : his first mea- 
sure was to proceed to the Council of Ancients, and inform 
them of the confusion which prevailed in the Council of 
Five hundred ; he entered unarmed, and being favourably 
received, harangued them in a stile of great animation to 
the following purport: — " Representatives of the people, 
you are placed in no comnson circumstances; you are on 
the mouth of a volcano which is ready to devour you. 
Permit me to speak to you with the frankness of a soldier 
and the candour of a citizen, zealous for the welfare of his 
country. You informed me of your dangers, and I hasten- 
ed to your assistance with my brother soldiers. Is not the 
blood which we have shed in battle a stitiicient proof of 
our devoted attachment to the republic? Have they who 
dure to lift their voices against us given similar pledges? 
They speak of a military government and a conspiracy. 
Alas! the most dangerous of all, is that which surrounds 
us every where, that of the public misery which continueis 
to increase. Have not igijorance, folly, and treason reign- 
ed long enough in our country; have they not committed 
sufficient ravages? What class has not in turn sutlered by 
them? Have not Frenchmen been long enough divided 
into parties, eager and desirous to oppress each other? The 
time is at length arrived to put an end to these disasters. 
You have charged me to presentyou wilh the means, and 
I will not deceive your expectatioiis. U 1 had had any 
personal or ambitious ohjects in view, I needed not to have 



1G5 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

waited till this time to realize them. Before my depar- 
ture and since my return I have been often solicited to 
take the reigns of government. 1 could make discoveries 
which would silence the greatest part of my calumniators ; 
but I will content myself with saying that Barras and Mou- 
lins entreated me to overturn the government and place 
myself at (he head of affairs. I rejected their overtures, 
because liberty alone is dear to me, and because I never 
wish to serve any faction or party whatever. I wish to 
serve the French people alone. Let us not then be divid- 
•ed. Unite vour wisdom and your firmness to the force 
which surrounds me, and I will devote myself to the safety 
of the republic." " And of the constitution," exclaimed 
Linglet. " The constitution !" replied Buonaparte with 
indignant warmth. " Does it become you to name it ? 
What is it but a heap of ruins ? Has it not been succes- 
sively the sport of every party ? Have you not trampled 
upon it on the 18th Fructidor, the 28th Floreal, and 28th 
Prairial ? The constitution ! Has not every kind of tyran^ 
ny been exercised in its name since the day of its esta- 
blishment ? Who can be safe under it? Is not its insuffici- 
ency manifested by the numerous crimes which have been 
committed in itsnamie, even by those who are swearing to 
it a contemptuous fidelity ? All the rights of the people 
have been unworthily violated, and to re-establish them on 
an immoveable basis we must endeavour to establish in 
France republican liberty." Though it is impossible to 
deny the praise of eloquence to this extempore harangue, 
it cannot lay the same claim to honesty or sincerity. 

Buonaparte having mentioned the names of Barras and 
Moulins, and hinted at many others as enemies to libert}^, 
several members thought it proper to interrupt him, being 
desirous at that time rather to unite men together than to 
sow the seeds of further disunion ; Cornudet, however, 
proposed that spectators should be turned out, and Buo- 
naparte be called upon to declare whom he alluded to, in 
a secret committee; but he, either thinking that he had 
gone too far, or that the time was too important to be 
wasted, reminded the council of the critical state of alfairs, 
and then addressing himself to the military who were on 
p;uard, promised if they did their duty to restore order and 
harmony ; leavinj:^ the assembly he went in haste to the 
Council of Five Hundred: the report of his comiuij hat^- 



i 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. iei 

©ccasioned a great bustle, every one rose up and all eyes 
were turned towards the principal entrance. In passing 
from the one council to the other he perceived the grena- 
diers of the legislative body walking quietly about, and 
their arms piled up in diflercnt stands; he immediately 
called out " To arms, soldiers, and follow me," being suf- 
ficiently sensible of what he had to encounter; and in this 
instance he was perhaps more indebted to fortune than at 
any other period of his life, for he certainly was in greater 
danger. Buonaparte entered the Council of Five Hundred 
precisely at five o'clock in the afternoon attended by twenty 
or thirty soldiers, who remained at the bottom of the room 
while be proceeded to the top unarmed and uncovered. 
No sooner had he advanced near the President's chair than 
the confusion became complete. Some flew to the tribune, 
and others to the general, exclaiming vehemently, " Down 
with the tyrant, down with the dictator," while others 
cried out, " Kill him, kill him/' at the same time aiming 
at him with poignards, pistols, and fists. Arena, a Cor- 
sican, struck at him with a dagger, and would probably 
have finished him, bad not a grenadier named Thome re- 
ceived the stroke on his arm. By another blow the gene- 
ral was slightly wounded on the cheek. Buonaparte for a 
moment was lost, and it is said he had fainted when Ge- 
neral Lel'ebre, with the grenadiers flew to his defence, sur- 
rounded him and carried him out : he then mounted on 
horseback and attempted to harangue the troops, but in 
very faint and whining terms; and going to the committee 
of inspectors he informed them of vi^hat had passed, but 
took no vigorous measures to combat his enemies, who 
were now in a great measure triumphant. After he had 
quitted the Council of Five Hundred, they decreed that 
the Council of Ancients had no right to give him the 
command of the troops, as that power belonged alone to 
the Directory. Lucien Buonaparte, the President, was 
attacked on all sides and nearly put to death ; finding, 
therefore, his authority despised and his life in danger, he 
darted from the chair, indignantly threw down the insignia 
of his office, and mounted the tribune with an intent to 
defend the conduct of his brother: he attempted several 
times to speak, but could not make himself heard ; tears of 
agony and indignation flowed down his cheeks, and he was 
on the point of giving himself up to his enemies, whenjall 



168 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

on a sudden, a conipan}' of grenadiers entered the chamber 
by the command of tlie general, and carried him off: lie 
found his brother in the court of the castle in the greatest 
agitation and agony, dreading the defection of the troops, 
irresolute, hesitating, and confused; and all would cer- 
tainly have been lost had not Lucien, with great presence 
of mind, immediately mounted a horse and harangued the 
troops: he stated in strong terms the dangers of the coun- 
try from the triumph of the jacobins, and concluded with 
these energetic words : — " General, soldiers, and citizens, 
they only are the repiesentatives who have followed me 
^out of that seditious assembly; they who remain there 
must be expelled by force." The troops instantly cried 
out " Long live Buonaparte. Long live the republic." A 
company of grenadiers was immediately ordered to clear 
the chamber. The spectators jun.ped out at the windows, 
but the members remained till they entered. The drum 
beat, the soldiers marched in and stopped at the bottom of 
the room. A general of brigade requested all those mem- 
bers who regarded their safety, to retire and join the Pre- 
sident ; many followed his advice. Another officer mount- 
ed the President's chair, and said with a loud voice, *' Re- 
presentatives, the commander in chief requires that you all 
quit this room." Many of them shewed signs of unwil- 
lingness and resistance, tiie ofiicer called out "Grenadiers 
advance." The drum beat, the grenadiers came forward, 
and a disgraceful scene of confusion ensued. The deputies, 
in their haste to get out, tumbled over each other; some 
ran to the doors, others to the windows, and in a few mi- 
nutes the chamber was empty : they were received by the 
people on the outside with hootings and hisses, and some 
of them were so ashamed of their conduct that they threw 
otf their insignia of office, many of which were found next 
day in the ditches and plantations around. 

Why Buonaparte should in this instance have been de- 
serted by his usual resolution and presence of mind, can 
only be accounted for by the greatness and the novelty of 
the occasion. Valor with a soldier is chiefly mechanical, 
and he who trembles in the first battle will enter upon the 
second or third with undaunted bravery ; besides, the heat 
and agitation of an engagement, preclude in a great mea- 
sure all thought and reflection, and leave no time for the 
consideration of danger or consequences; so that the sauie 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 169 

ti\m\ who will fearlessly advance to a cannon's mouth has 
often heen known to tremble at the rustle of a leaf in the 
Calm, still, dark hour of night. To the noise and danger 
t>f battle Buonaparte was well accustomed, and habit had 
there rendered him inaccessible to fear ; but this was a new 
occasion, and one on which all the greatness of his future 
life depended; the risk of a battle was not to be compared 
to it, and having time for reflection, this thought presented 
itself fully to his mind and overwhelmed him. 

The Council of Ancients, after hearing what had passed 
in the other assembly, proceleded to some resolutions and 
debates of little importance; but finding that they could 
not decide any thing effectually, without the initiative from 
the Council of Five Hundred, determined that all the 
members of that council who could be brought together 
should immediately assemble ; and accordingly, about nine 
o'clock in the evening, a large number beingcollected they 
met in their former apartment under the presidencey of 
Lucien Buonaparte. Their first proceeding was to inform 
the other council of their having met, and the next, to pass 
a vot6 of thanks to the commander in chief, and the officers 
who had co-operated with him in saving the country from 
the violence of the anarchists. Chazal then proposed that 
a secret committee of five members should be appointed 
to take into consideration the mean^ of forniing a new 
government; after this was adopted, Lucien Buonaparte 
quitted the President's chair, mounted the tribune, and 
pronounced a most animated and eloquent harangue, on 
the disasters of the republic, arising from the misconduct 
of the late government, and the necessity of appointing a 
new one. His speech was received with the loudest ap- 
plause, and repeated cries of " Long live the republic." 
Boulay de la Meurthe soon after returned With the report 
of the secret committee, containing the project of a de- 
cree for appointing a neW government : he prefaced his 
motion by a long speech, in which he enlarged on the 
profligac}?^ and incapacity of the Directory, as well as oii 
the defects of the constitution itSelf, and thenecessity of a 
strong executive power to give solidity to the state and 
prevent the return of anarchy. The first article of the 
decree declares " That there is no longer a Directory." 
The second *' That there shall be created provisionally an 

W 



170 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

executive Consulate to consist of three members, Sycyes, 
Ducos, and Buonaparte, who shall bear the name of Con- 
suls of the French republic." The next related to the 
legislative power, which it left to be settled by the two 
councils on their meeting at Paris, but appointed tvi'o com- 
mittees in the mean time to draw up the form of a new 
constitution. The Council of Five Hundred then com- 
posed a proclamation addressed to the French people. At 
one o'clock in the morning the Council of Ancients an-* 
nounced their approbation of the proposed decree. Frege- 
"ville then moved ihat the three Consuls should be invited 
to the sitting and take the oath of fidelity to the sove- 
reignty of the people, &c. before which the President ad- 
dressed the assembly and the Consuls in a suitable speech, 
and measures were then taken to ensure the tranquillity 
of Paris, which were in a gieat measure superfluous, as 
there had been no disposition shewn to insurrection or 
A tumult, though various, contradictory, and alarming re- 

I ports had reached the city of what was passing at St. 

Cloud. 
\. The Consuls returned to Paris about four in the morn- 

ing on the 11th of November, and entered upon their 
functions that same day, after taking the refreshment which 
nature, after so much fatigue of mind and body, required. 
The first sitting held by the provisional consulate was em- 
ployed in the nomination of many individuals to places of 
importance ; the seal of the republic was changed, and the 
newspapers were stopped at the post-office and new ones 
printed to inform the departments of sill that had been 
transacted, and in the evening an address from the Consuls 
was read through all Paris by torch light to the same pur- 
port, though Buonaparte had on the night of the 10th ad- 
dressed one of the same sort to the citizens of St. Cloud. 

The new Consuls were Received at Paris with every 
testimony of satisfaction and applause, and on the 12th of 
November they held their first sitting at the Luxembourg, 
where the inscription " Directorial Palace" was taken 
down aver the principal gate, and replaced by the follow- 
ing, " The Palace of the Consuls of the republic." The 
two committees held their meetings also in the same place, 
which they continued till the 15th of December, when 
the new constitution was proclaimed. In the mean time 
they repealed some ©f the most odious and oppressive 



4 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY, 171 

laws of the Directory, which prepared the people to ex- 
pect the happiest effects from the operations of the new 
government. 

When Napoleone had usurped the reins of government, 
he appointed Lucien minister for the home department, 
and recalled Fontanes, who in 1797 had been condemned 
to transportation, to be his secretary: and it was this Fon- 
tanes who v/rote all his eloquent speeches and proclama- 
tions during his ministry. 

Lucien was now in his element ; possessing the means 
of gratifying all his degrading and cruel passions. Not a 
w^oman whom chance ej^poseid to his view, or caprice to 
his fancy, and whorri money, power, violence, or intrigue, 
could procure, but was seduced, dishonoured, and ruined 
by him: neither the innocence of youth, the misfortunes 
of beauty, the sanctity of marriage, nor the sacredness of 
consanguinity, were respected by him* In six months, he 
was guilty of more crimes than all the Princes of the 
house of Bourbon have been accused of in six centuries. 
At a ball in April, 1800, at the hotel de Richelieu, where 
upwards of two hundred women of fashion were present 
(amongst others, two of his own sisters), he often and loud- 
ly repeated. Here is not a woman with whom, I have not 
intrigued / 

After the battle of Marengo, ambition, for some time, 
got the better of debauchery : Lucien imagined, because his 
brother could dictate to emperors, and create kings, that 
he might easily marry into some imperial or royal family ; 
and, as his wife was an obstacle, he gave her some ice 
cream, which she ate, and died : — that she was poisoned, 
not only her relations, but all Paris, proclaimed. 

Two days after his v^^ife's death, five of Lucien's armed 
spies carried away to his country-house, against her con- 
sent, the beautiful wife of a rich banker ; she was confined 
there several days to console him, not for the loss of his 
wife, but for the refusal of his brother to marry him to 
some German Princess. 

Lucien had long intrigued to get Fouche disgraced, and 
to unite the ministry of the police with the home depart- 
ment; but here he met with an equal, if not a superior, as 
well in plots as in guilt. Fouche informed Napoleone 
not only of Lucien's scandalous conduct, and of the public 
clamour against him, of his extravagant expences and of 



U!3 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

his numerous debts ; but also told him, that Lucien had 
bpoken of him (Napolt^one) with contempt, and dared hin 
})ower, for which, he said, Napoleone was indebted to him: 
the reports of Fouche's spies proved his assertion, and 
Lucien was forbidden the presence of his consular brother, 
and ordered tp resign his ministry ; not for his vices and 
crimes, for they had been long known, but because he had 
been indiscreet; and, besides, by circulating a pamphlet, 
^vritten under his orders by Fontanes, had discovered son^e 
I'^niily secrets; and 'among the rest, ttie arriere pensc of 
[^^apoleone, one day to assume the imperial crown of the 
Gauls. By the mediation of his mother, and the advice 
of Talleyrand, his disgrace was changed into a lucrative 
embassy to Spain, to sell Tuscany, and to plunder Portu- 
gal. 

Lucien left Paris with a debt of three millions of livres ; 
■which Napoleone promised to ])ay, but which is yet un- 
paid. Sorpe of his creditors have died after being ruined; 
the Temple and Cayenne have silenced the complaints of 
the others. 

In Spain, and chiefly at Madrid, Lucien continued his 
debauched and vicious life : his prodigality there surprised 
every one; his n'regularity gave offence, and his impudence 
disgust. He treated the king and royal family as his 
equals, and the ministers and grandees as his servants ; but 
^uch is the degraded situation of the Continent, the de- 
jected or abject slate of many of its sovereigns, and the 
>veakness, ignorance, or treachery of their ministers and 
counsellors, that this revolutionary sans-culotte was not 
only suffered, but bribed, entertained, and complimented. 
By his negociations at Madrid and with Portugal, Lu- 
cien added twenty millions of livres to the fortune of his 
brother, and ten to his own ; he degraded royalty by creat- 
ing a kingdom in Tuscany, and insulted loyalty by swind- 
ling a province of Portugal. 

After the peace with England, when Lucien returned to 
Paris, he was made a Senator, and one of the grand offi- 
cers of the Legion of Honour; and he now shows away 
in a style to which the most extravagant manner of living 
pf any modern prince, brother or son to any emperor or 
king, cannot be compared : his jewels and diamonds are 
valued at upv\ards oi three millions of livres; his cabinet 
©j" pictures cost him more than that sura; and his seraglio 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 173 

and debaucheries more than both these sums together. 
1'he millions that he carried with him from Spain and Por- 
tugal are expended; and notwithstanding that his brother 
allows him an annuity of 1,200,000 livres, besides what 
he receives from his lucrative places, he is said to be four 
millions in debt. 

Lucien is as insolent and despotic in his present eleva- 
tion, as he was formerly vile and cruel ; illiberal, ungene- 
rous and unfeeling, he uses his mistresses as if they were 
his slaves — and his friends qs his inistre^ses ; he is a ty- 
rant to his domestics, and a terror to all who approach 
him. t 

The glitter of affluence may dazzle the unthinking, 
and the renown of prosperity puzzle the weak ; but Lu- 
cien's greatness can neither cover the infamy of the guilty, 
nor the guilt of the infamous ; and his rank is unable to 
conceal the ignoble and base sentiments of a base and 
ignoble miqd. 



1T4 

}LOUIS BUONAPARTE, 

BROTHES OF TH£ £MP£I10X> 



Et l*on voit des commis mis 
Commc des princes 
Qui d'hier sont venus nus 
De leurs provinces. 

When, in 1795, through a medley of successful crimes, 
and of foul forgotten deeds, fortune was wantonly pleased 
to raise Napoleone Buonaparte from the dregs of obscuri- 
ty ; his brother Louis was a petty clerk, with a salary of 
twenty pounds a year, at the petty police commissary 
Pierre Pierre's office at Marseilles; a notorious terrorist, 
married to the daughter of an inn-keeper, and brother-in- 
law to Lucien Buonaparte; who when a minister of the 
home department, promoted him to the lucrative office of 
general-commissary of police at Bourdeaux. In the autumn 
of 1796, Louis left Marseilles for Italy, and began his mi- 
litary career at the age of eighteen, as a chief of battalion, 
or lieutenant-colonel, and aid-de-camp to his brother Na- 
poleone. In this capacity he followed him to Egypt in 
1798 ; but suffering in Africa the consequences of his de- 
baucheries in Europe, his stay there was but short ; and 
he returned to France in October of the same year, with 
dispatches from General Buonaparte for the Directory. 

Of all the Buonapartes (not excepting either Joseph th^ 
negotiator, or Napoleone the warrior) Louis is the only one 
who can correctly w^ite and spell the French language. A 
letter of his to his brother Joseph, dated Alexandria, July 
6th, 1798, was intercepted by our cruizers, and contains 
some accounts of the operations of the French army of the 
East, and some remarks on the inhabitants of Egypt. In 
speaking of the Bedouin Arabs, he says — " They are an 
invincible people, inhabiting a burning desert, mounted on 
the fleetest horses in the world, and full of courage. We 
have treated them kindly. They live with their wives and 
children in flying camps, wkich ar^ never pitched tw 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 175 

nights together at the same place. They are horrible sava- 
geSf and yet they have some notion of gold and silver ! a 
small quantity of it serves to excite their admiration. Yes, 
my dear brother, they love gold (not more than the French) 
they pass their lives in extorting it from such Europeans 
as fall into their hands: and for what purpose? for con- 
tinuing the course of life which I have described, and for 
teaching it to their children. O, Jean Jacques! (Rousseau) 
why was it not thy fate to see these men, whom thou cal- 
lest " the men of nature ?" thou wouldst sink with shame, 
thou wouldst startle with horror, at the thought of hav- 
ing once admired them ! Speaking of the city of Alex- 
andria, he continues, " The remarkable objects here, are 
Pompey*s column, the obelisks of Cleopatra, the spot where 
her baths once stood, a number of ruins, a subterraneous 
temple, some catacombs, mosques, and a few churches. 
But that which is still more remarkable, is the character 
and manners of the inhabitants. They are of a sang-froid 
absolutely ?i%\.oms\\\x\^. Nothing agitates them; 2cc\d death 
is to them what a voyage to America is to the English, 
Their interior is imposing. The most marked physiogno- 
mies amongst us are mere children's countenances, com- 
pared to theirs.'* He finishes his letter with an observation 
that shews both the difficulty and honour of the conquest 
of Egypt by General Buonaparte, and of his boasted vic- 
tories : " Their/or/^ (says Louis) and their artillery are the 
most ridiculous things in nature ; they have not even a lock 
nor a window to their houses; in a word, they are still in, 
volved in the blindness of the earliest ages," 

Lucien Buonaparte often repeats, that his brother Louis 
est le seul htte de la famille (the only fool in the family) : 
but when at the age of twenty he was able to make such 
obser\'ations as those contained in this letter, his sense waar 
certainly as good, and his instruction and judgment better 
than that of Lucien himself, who, not long ago, when mi- 
nister of the home department, wrote to Citizen Lalande, 
" to stop the eclipse of the moon until his arrival,'^ It is 
true, that since 1793 an immoderate use of mercury has 
rather impaired Louis's intellects, and prevented his ad- 
vancement to the rank of a general, and perhaps to that of 
a constable of France ; but though a libertine, in common 
with his brothers and sisters, he has neither the crimes of 
Napoleone and Lucien, nor the treachery of Joseph, to re» 



i^G REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

proach himself with, and is therefore less disliked in France 
than either of them. 

In December 1799, after Napoleone had proclaimed 
himself the First Consul of France, Louis was nominated 
Colonel of a regiment of dragoons; and in October 1800 
was entrusted with a political mission to the courts of Ber- 
lin and St. Petersburgh. His reception at the former was 
brilliant, and he was honoured by the condescension of the 
King and Queen to fraternize with him, as if he had been 
the brother of a lawful King of France ; so much so, that 
it was not only a real scandal to a number of loyal foreign- 
ers who passed that winter at Berlin, but even to those 
Prussian Generals, princes, and courtiers, who had wit- 
nessed the etiquette at the courts of former kings and 
queens. The impertinent and unbecoming familiarity of 
the ill-bred Louis Buonaparte, was only surpassed by the 
impolitic, but patient endurance of the royal family ; from 
which this sans-culottc, brother of a guilty sans-cuhtte 
usurper, took the opportunity to insult, if not to degrade 
monarchy, by his ridiculous, vulgar, and audacious con- 
versation at the table of a monarch ; and by his too fami- 
liar, if not indecent behaviour before the public when in 
the King's box at the opera ; where he publicly and boldly 
dared to converse with the young and beautiful Queen, as 
if he had been with the old painted wife of the First Con- 
sul. Infected by a known infamous disease, which kept 
him for weeks in his lodgings at the Hotel de Paris, he 
fortunately did not often repeat those scenes, which ex- 
cited so much the astonishment, animadversion, and com- 
plaint of birth, rank, and loyalty. Many persons are yet 
of opinion, that nothing can ever indemnify legal and he- 
reditary sovereignty for the sutfenmce of so many humili- 
ations. 

Before he left Berlin for the Russian frontiers, Louis was 
infoTmed by the Russian ambassador. Baron Krudncr, that 
he had not yet obtained any orders from his sovereign to 
invite the consular brother to St. Petersburgh. The Em- 
peror Paul, though seduced by French intriguers, dazzled 
by the victories of the First Consul, offended with Austria, 
and embroiled with England, did not forget what he owed 
to himself, to his rank, to his family, to his country, or to 
his subjects. Louis Buonaparte's purposed journey to 
Russia therefore ended at Koenigsber^ in Prussia, only on 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^ 



nr 



the Russian frontiers; from wliicli place he expeditecT re- 
mittances and smuggled instructions to the emissaries of 
Napoleone at St. Petersburgh; and, to the great satisiac-' 
tiou of all loyal men, he returned to Berlin without bein^ ' 
able to dishonour another sovereign. 

After a few more weeks residence in the capital of 
Prussic^,' jhe. was recalled to France by Napoleone, and sent 
to jVIontpellier, as Lucieti said, on a mercurial (and not on;, 
a political or military) mission, preparatory to receiving the 
liaiid of the lovely Fanny de Beauharnois. His marriage 
with'thia.lady is a convincitig proof that he is a greater fci-/: 
vou rite with the First Consul than Lucien, who was one ' 
of the pretenders to this acconiplished beauty. The de- 
clared promise of Napoleone to bequeath to the son of 
Louis his Consulate, and the sovereignty over the French 
Republic, has disj)leased all the other members of the . 
Buonaparte family: and his numerous and valuable pre- 
sents, both to Madame Louis and her husband, have ex- ; 
cited the envy of all the Corsican relatives, who are plot- 
ling to diminish the increasing consideration of this youn- . 
ger brother, or rather the repeated donations to his wife. 

Surrounded by every thing that can make existence de- 
sirable, Louis is an invalid at the age of twenty-three ;'an(l 
v.:ith ruined health, and a broken constitutionj he cannot 
enjoy the blessings which Providence has so liberally pour- 
ed down upon him; he suffers, therefore, in the midst of 
his prosperity, pains and pangs unknown even to wretch- 
edness itself when accompanied with innocence and vir-- ■ 
tue. 

According to the Livre Rouge, by Bourrienne, Louis 
Buonaparte received as an establishtnent two millions of 
livres; he has a yearly pension of one million two hundred 
thousand livres. One million of debts were paid for hinj 
in 1800 and 1801, at Berlin and in Germany ; at his mar- 
riage Napoleone presented him with six hundred thousand 
livres, and the same sum at the birth of his son. 



X 



Its REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

We subjoin to the above account of this Illustrious Pcr^ 
sonage, the invitation of the people of the Batavian Re- 
public, to accept of the throne of that Republic, as King 
of Holland and Constable of the Empire. What a Consta^ 
hie ! What an Empire ! and luhat an Emperor ! 



Paris, June 3, 1804. 
Presentation of the Ambassadors Extraordinary from the 
States of Holland. 

Arrived at the hall of the throne, they went through the 
usual ceremonies, after which, V ice-Admiral Verhuel, Pre- 
sident of the Deputation, delivered the following ad- 
dress : — 

"Sire, 

" The representatives of the people distinguished by 
their patience in times of difficulty, and, we dare to say, 
celebrated for the solidity of their judgment, and their 
fidelity in fulfilling the engagements they have contracted, 
have confided to us the honourable mission of presenting 
ourselves before the throne of your majesty. This people 
have suffered a long time under its own agitations and 
those of Europe* Witnesses of the catastrophes that have 
overthrown some states ; victims of the disorders by which 
the whole have been shaken ; they have been made sensi- 
ble, that the force of interests and connections, by which 
the great powers are at present united or divided, has ren- 
dered it indispensably necessary for them to place them- 
selves under the first political safe-guard of Eiarope. They 
have felt, that even their weakness has prescribed the ne- 
cessity of reducing their own institutions into harmony 
with those of that state whose protection alone can guaran- 
tee them against the danger of servitude or ruin. 

" 7^hese Representatives have maturely and solemnly 
deliberated upon the circumstances of the present times, 
and the dreadful probabilities of the future ; they have 
seen, even in the term of the calamities with which Eu- 
rope has been so long afflicted, both the causes of their own 
evils, and the remedy to which it is necessary they should 
have recourse. 

" Sire ! We are charsjed to express to your Majesty the 
wishes of the representatives of our people. We pray 
that you will grant us as the Supreme Chief of our Repub- 
lic, Prince jLouis Napoleone, your Majesty's brother, t© 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. no 

J^hom we deliver, in full and respectful confidence, the 
guarantee of our laws, the defence of our political rights, 
and all the interests of our dear country. Under the sa- 
bred auspices of Providence — under the glorious protec- 
tion of your Majesty— and, in fine, under the power of the 
paternal government, which we require of him. Sire, we 
dare to hope, that Holland, assured in future of the un- 
changeable affection of the greatest of Monarchs, and 
strictly allied even by its destiny to thc^t of your immense 
and immortal Empire, will see the renewal of its ancient 
glory and prosperity and repose it bas so long been de- 
prived of. Its losses then will no longer be considered as 
irreparable, and will only leave behind them a future re- 
membrance." 

His Majesty answered in the following terms :. 

** Gentlemen, Representatives of the Batavian People, 

" I have always looked upon the protection of your 
country as the first interest of my crown. Every time I 
have been called upon to interfere in your internal affairs, 
1 have been struck, from the first, with the inconvenience 
attached to the uncertain form of your government. Go- 
verned by a popular assembly, it had been under the in-* 
trigues, and agitated by neighbouring Governments. 

" Governed by an Elective Magistracy, every time this 
Magistracy was renewed, produced a crisis of alarm to the 
rest of Europe, and the signal of new maratime wars. 
None of these inconveniencies can be guarded against 
otherwise than by an hereditary Government. This I re- 
commended to your country by my councils, when the last 
constitution was established ; and the offer that you have 
made of the crown of Holland to P. Louis is consistent 
with your true interests and my own; and it is adapted to 
secure the general tranquillity of Europe. France has 
been sufficiently generous, in renouncing all the rights 
which the events of war had given her over Holland ; but 
I cannot intrust the strong places which cover my northen 
frontier, to the keeping of an unfaithful, or even to a doubt- 
ful hand. 

" Gentlemen, I agree to the request of their High Migh- 
tinesses. I proclaim Prince Louis King of Holland. You, 
Prince! reign over this people. Their forefathers only 
acquired their independence by the constant assistance of 
France— Holland afterwards became allied to England ; sh« 



180 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

has been conquered ; still she owes her existence to France. 
Let them then owe to you, their King, the protection of 
their laws and their religion, but never cease to be a 
Frenchman. You and your heirs will possess the dignity 
of Constable of the Empire; you will recollect the duties 
you have to fulfil towards me, and the importance that I 
have attached to the safe keeping of the strong places upon 
my northen frontier, and which I confide to you. Prince! 
maintain among your troops that spirit which I have ob- 
served among them in the field of battle. Cherish the 
sentiment of unioji and love for France among your new 
subjects. Be a terror to the wicked, and a father to the 
good; this is the character of great Kings." 

His Highness Prince Louis then advancing to the foot of 
the throne, said, 

"Sire — I had placed all ambition in sacrificing my life 
in your service. I made my happiness consist in a close 
inspection into those qualities that, equally dear to myself 
ond others, have so often testified the power and effects of 
your genius. Permit me then to express my regret in se- 
parating from you ; but my life and my wishes belong to 
you. I go to reign in Holland because it is the desire of 
the people, and because it is your Majesty's order. 

** Sire, when your Majesty quitted France to go and con- 
quer Europe, which had conspired against you, you in- 
trusted to me the defence of Holland against the invasion 
that threatened it. On this occasion I appreciated the 
-character of the people, and the qualities which distin- 
guished them. 

*' Yes, Sire, I shall be proud of reigning over them ; 
]jut however glorious the career may be that presents itself, 
the assurance of your Majesty's constant protection,the love 
and patriotism of my new subjects, will give me the hopes 
of healing those wounds occasioned by so many wars, and 
the events that have accumulated within the course of a 
, few years. 

. " Sire, when your Majesty shall put the last seal to 
your glory, in giving peace to the world, the places which 
you shall then entrust to my care, to that of my children, 
to the Dutch troops that have fought at Austerlitz under 
your inspection shall be well guarded. United by inter- 
est, my people shall at the same time be attached by the 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. isi 

sentiments of iove and gratitude to their King, to your 
Majesty, and to France." 

The Dutch representatives had an audience of the Em- 
press, and were afterwards conducted to their hotel in the 
same manner in which they left it. 

Message from his Majestif the Emperor and King. 

"We have commanded our cousin, the Arch-Chancellor 
of the empire, to acquaint you, that in compliance with 
the wishes of their High Mightinesses, we have proclaimed 
Prince Louis Napoleone, our well beloved brother. King 
of Holland ; the throne to be descendible to his heirs, 
male and legitimate, in orderof primogeniture. It is our 
intention also, that the King of Holland and his posterity, 
preserve the title of Constable of the empire. This deter- 
mination of ours has appeared conformable to the interests 
of our people. As Holland, in a military point of view, 
included all the strong places which protected our north- 
ern frontier, it was necessary, for the security of our states, 
that the custody of it should be entrusted to persons re- 
specting whose attachment we could entertain no doubt. 
In a commercial point of view, Holland, being situate at 
the mouths of many great rivers which flow through a 
considerable part of our terrirory, it was necessary that we 
should have security that the treaty of commerce, which 
we shall conclude with her, shall be faithfully executed 
in order that we may adjust our manufacturing and com- 
mercial interests with the commerce of that people. 

" Holland, besides, is one of the first political concerns 
of France. An elective Magistracy would have produced 
this inconvenience, that it would have oftener exposed the 
country to the intrigues of our enemies, and tliat every 
fresh election would have been the signal for a new war. 

" Prince Louis, v,'hohas no personal ambition, has given 
us a proof of his affection for us, and of the love he bears 
the people of Holland, by accepting the offer of a throne 
which imposes upon him such great obligation. 

*' The Arch Chancellor of the German empire. Elector 
of Ratisbon, and Primate of Germany, having signified to 
us that it was his intention to appoint a Coadjutor, and 
that with the concurrence of the Minister and principal 
members of his Chapter, having conceived that it would 
be for the advantage of religion and the German empire, 
that he should appoint to that situation our uncle and cou- 



18^ REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

«in Cardinal Fesch, our grand Almoner, and Arcbbishopf 
of Lyons, we have accepted the said nomination in the 
name of the said Cardinal. If this determination of the 
Elector Arch-Chancellor of the empire, be useful to Ger- 
many, it is no less comfortable to the political interests of 
France. 

" Thus does the services of the country call far away 
from us, our brothers and our children ; but the happiness 
and prosperity of our subjects are also among the object*, 
of our dearest affection." 

" At our Palace at St. Cloud, 5th of June, 1806. 

" NAPOLEONE." 
(Countersigned) " MARET." 

TREATY. 

" His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleone, Empe- 
ror of the French and King of Italy, and the Assembly of 
their High Mightinesses the Representatives of the Bata- 
vian Republic, presided by his Excellency the Grand Pen- 
sionary, accompanied by the Council of State, the Mini- 
sters, and Secretary of state, considering — 

" I. That from the prevailing turn of mind, and the 
^actual organization of Europe, a government without so- 
lidity, and certain duration, cannot fulfil the objects for 
which it is instituted. 

" 2. Tliat the periodical renewal of the head of the state 
would always be a source of dissention in Holland, and a 
constant subject of agitation and disagreement among the 
powers friendly or inimical to Holland. 

" 3. That an hereditary government can alone secure 
the quiet possession of all which is dear to the Dutch 
people, the free exercise of their religion, the preservation 
of their laws, their political independence and civil li- 
berty. 

" 4. That its first duty is to secure to itself a powerful 
protection, under the shelter of which it may freely exer- 
cise its industry, and maintain itself in the possession of its 
territory, its commerce and its colonies. 

** 5, That France is essentially interested in the happi- 
ness of the Dutch jDeople, in the prosperity of the state, in 
the permanence of its institutions, as well in consideration 
of northern frontiers of. the empire, open and unfortified/ 
as from general political interests and principles: 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 183 

Have nominated for their minister plenipotentiary, of 
his Majesty the Emperor of the French and King of Ital}?^, 

" Charles Maurice Talleyrand, Great Chamberlain, Mi- 
nister of Affairs, knight of the Great Order of the Legion 
of Honour, Knight of the Order of the Red and Black 
Eagle of Russia, and of the Order of St. Hubert, &c. and 

" His Excellency the Grand Pensionary — C. PL Ver- 
l>uel, Vice-Admiral, and Minister of Marine of the Ba- 
tavian Republic, having the Grand Eagle of the Legioiv 
of Honour. 

" T. T. A. Gogel, Minister ,of Finance. 

" J. Van Sty rum, one of their High Mightinesses. 

" W. Six, Member of the Council ot* State, and G. 
Brantzen, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Batavian Repub- 
lic, having the Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honour, who 
after having mutually interchanged their respective full 
powers, have agreed as follows: 

" Art. 1. His Majesty the Emperor of the French and 
King of Italy, as well for himself as for his heirs and suc- 
cessors for ever, guarantees to Holland the maintenance of 
its constitutional rights, its independence; the whole of 
its possessions abroad and at home, its political, civil and 
religious liberty, such as is ordained by the existing laws, 
and the abolition of all privileges with respect to taxes. 

" 2. Upon the formal request made by their High Migh- 
tinesses, the Representatives of the Batavian Republic, 
that Prince Louis should be appointed Hereditary and 
Constitutional King of Holland, his Majesty has yielded 
to their wishes, and has authorised Prince Louis Napole.. 
one to accept the Crown of Holland, to descend to hiin 
and his male heirs legitimate, to the perpetual exclusion of 
females and their descendants. 

" In consequence of this permission. Prince Louis Na- 
poleone, will take the Crown under the title of King, and 
with all the power and authority determined by the Con- 
stitutional Laws, which the Emperor Napoleone guaran- 
teed by the preceding article. 

" It is, nevertheless, agreed, that the Crown of France 
and Holland can never be united in the same persons. 

" The Royal domain consists of, 

*' First, A Palace at the Hague, which is to be the resi- 
dence of the Royal Family. 

" Second, The House in the Wood. 



]Si REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH 

" Third, Tlie domain of Soelsdick. 

" Fourth, A landed income of 300,000 florins. 

" The law, besides, assures to the King a further reve- 
nue of fifteen hundred thousand florins, payable by month- 
ly instalments. 

'' 4. In case of a rninority, the regency shall belong by 
right to the Queen, and in her default to the Emperor of 
the French, in his quality of perpetual head of the Impe- 
rial Family. He shall choose among the Princes of the 
Royal Family, and, in their default, among the natives. 
The minority of the King shall be completed within his 
eighteenth year. .- : 

"5. The dowry of the Queen shall be determined by 
her marriage contract.; At present it is agreed to fix it at 
the annual sum of <?5,000 florins, to be taken from the do- 
mains of the crown; this sum being deducted, one half 
remaining of the revenues of the Crown shall be appropri- 
ated to the maintenance of the household of the Minor 
King; the other half to go to the expences of the Re- 
gency. 

" The King of Holland shall be a Grand Dignitary of 
the Empire in perpetuity, under the title of Constable. The 
functions of this office, however, may, with the consent of 
the Emperor of the French, be. performed by a Prineej 
Vice-Constable, whenever the Emperor may think proper 
to create such a dignity. 

*' 7- The Members of the reigning family in Holland 
shall remain personally subject to the disposition of the 
constitutional statute of the 30th of March last, forming 
the law of the Imperial Family of France. 

" 8. The charges and offices of the State, those belong- 
ing to the personal service of the King's household except- 
ed, can only be conferred upon natives. 

9' " The arms of the King shall be the ancient arms of 
Holland, quartered with the French Imperial Eagle, and 
mounted with the royal crown. 

" 10. A treaty of Commerce shall be immcidiately con- 
cluded between the contracting parties, by virtue of which 
the subjects of Holland shall at all times be treated as the 
most favoured nation, in the ports and upon the French 
territory. His Majesty the Emperor and King also enga- 
ges to mediate with the powers of Barbary, to obtain the 
respect due to the Dutch flag, equal to that of the French. 



( 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 1S5 

" The ratification of the present treaty shall be exchang- 
ed at Paris within the space of six hours. 

(Signed) " C. M. TALLEYRAND, 

" CH. HENRY VERHUEL, 
" T. T. A. GOGEL, 
" J. VAN STYRUL, 
" W. SIX, and 
« C. BRANTZEN. 
Paris, May 24, 1S06." 

[The official paper also contains another message and 
two decrees respecting the creation of M. Talleyrand as 
Prince and Duke of Bonevento, and, of Bernadotte as 
Prince and Duke of Ponte Corvo.] 



isa 



JEROME BUONAPARTE. 



BROTHER OF THE EMPEROR. 



-II tire de la poussiere 



TJne race d'afFreux brigands, 
D^esclavessans hocneur, et de cruels tyrans. 
Plus mechante que les Robespierre. 

It is a disgrace to France in particular, and to Europe in 
general, to be condemned to know, that such low, insigni- 
ficant personages as the different petty members of the 
petty Buonaparte family, are really in existence ; but such, 
unfortunately, is the present degraded situation of the ci- 
vilized world, that every thing concerning the race of the 
Corsican usurper is inquired after with an impolitic curio- 
sity, and read with an avidity almost culpable. The dis- 
gusting task, therefore, of exposing the native infamy of 
the Buonapartes, from the eldest of them down to the 
youngest, must be undertaken by loyalty, to prevent dis- 
affection from profiting by a fashionable inquisitiveness, and 
augmenting the number of its former misrepresentations, 
concerning the many guilty upstarts whom the French 
rebellion has brousfht into an atrocious notoriety. 

Jerome Buonaparte, the younger brother of the First 
Consul, was born in 1785. When, in 1795, Napoleone's 
crimes were rewarded with rank and riches, Jerome was an 
errand-boy in a small inn frequented by waggoners, at 
Marseilles; and such was the poverty of his mother and 
family, that she was unable to pay for his instruction, and 
at the age of ten he could neither write nor read. In 
1796, when success crowned the undertakings of the nu- 
merous army commanded by General Buonaparte in Italy, 
he ordered Jerome to be sent, at his expence, to a public 
school at Basle, in Switzerland, under the care of his sister 
and brother-in-law, Bacchiochi, then settled in that city in 
a petty cotton manufactory. 

Wlien seated upon the throne of the Bourbons, Napo- 
leone, hav\ng made one of his brothers a negotiator, ano- 
ther a miniver, and a third a colonel, determined that Je- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ist 

rome should be advanced in the navy, the only department 
wherein none of his relatives could yet pretend to shine, op 
to govern. Jerome was therefore put under the particular 
care of Admiral Gantheaume, who considered himself 
greatly honoured by being promoted to (he tutorship of such 
a hopeful and distinguished youth. Jerome accompanied 
this admiral during his voyage from Brest to Toulon in the 
spring of 1801, and in his attempt during the summer of 
the same year to land some troops on the African shore, as 
succours to General Menou in Egypt. Not being able to 
glorif}' himself with any success in this undertaking, Gan- 
theaume tried, by showering flattery on one brother, to 
extenuate his own fault, or misfortune, and to lessen the 
consular anger of another brother. In his dispatches, the 
illustrious pupil, Jerome Buonaparte, was mentioned "as 
a 3'oung sea officer who promised to be an ornament to his 
profession, and whose great talents and undaunted courage 
would reflect great honour on the French navy." 

To the shame of this repuhli can couvi\QX , it is to be men- 
tioned, as a fact known in 1801, at Toulon, as well as at 
Marseilles, that, during Gantheaume's cruise this year in 
the Mediterranean, the boy Jerome Buonaparte underwent 
an operation rendered necessary by an infamous disease, 
and which probably will prevent his progeny from being 
first consuls or admirals in France. At the early age of 16, 
Jerome was plunged into vice, and exhibited ignominious 
proofs of early depravity ; and this Corsican ornament to 
his profession shewed his undaunted courage by bravely 
keeping his bed during the whole voyage. 

When, after the preliminaries with England had been 
signed, Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse was sent with a fleet and 
an army to St. Domingo, Jerome, then promoted to the 
rank of a lieutenant, accompanied him as one of his aid- 
de-camps. When safely arrived at his destination, this 
republican admiral, to outdo even Gantheaume in mean- 
ness, sent his first dispatches from St. Domingo to France 
by this boy Jerome Buonaparte, " to whose uncommon 
skill, both as a naval and military officer, he confidently 
referred for whatever the government (Napoleone) should 
think proper to know concerning the expedition to St. 
Domingo.'* B}^ such absurd bombast, and by such disho- 
nourable debasement, did this admiral please the Firs| 



188 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Consul so much, that he obtained the appointment of cap- 
tain-general of Martinique. 

After a short stay in France, Jerome, now made a cap- 
tain, obtained the command of a corvette, and was sent 
again with confidential dispatches to his brother-in-law Ge- 
neral Le Clerc, at Cape Francois. He had now an oppor- 
tunity to demonstrate his natural fraternity to a Napoleone 
and a Lucien Buonaparte. On his arrival at the Cape, 
daily torments and executions of the unfortunate negroes 
were the orders of tlie day ; and he found so much delight 
in the improvements invented by the hellish genius of a 
republican officer, Grenier, to prolong their sufferings, that 
he presented him with a ring worth twelve thousand livres; 
while he sent to prison another oflicer, who forgot to call 
him up one morning when 262 of the negroes were half 
burnt before they were sawed to pieces. On his arrival, 
his virtuous sister, Madame Le Clerc, had presented hira 
"with a beautiful mulatto woman for a mistress, to keep him 
sage, as she said : this girl was descended from respectable 
parents, and had received a better education than was com- 
mon in St. Domingo since the Revolution. One afternoon 
in a fit of jealousy, Jerome ordered her to be devoured 
alive by some famished blood-hounds, which he always 
kept for his entertainment, and was present to see his atro- 
cious orders executed 1 ! ! This abomination surprised even 
Madame Le Clerc, who^ as a punishmcjit, did not admit her 
brother to her table the day following. A brother of this 
unfortunate girl,a lieutenant in the republican service,being 
refused the satisfaction that he demanded for this crime, in 
despair deserted to the Blacks; but was recaptured, and 
condemned by General Le Clerc to be shot from the mouth 
of a cannon. Every thing that the fancy or passion of Je- 
rome fixed upon, he put into requisition for his use. The 
clay afUr the murder of one mistress, he sent orders to the 
daughter of a white planter to Jill up the vacant place ; she, 
however, prefered poison to :he embraces of such a young 
monster ; but by disappointing his vile passion, she caused 
the death of her father, and the ruin of her family ; the 
former being shot upon the denunciation of Jerome, who 
accused him of corresponding with the negroes, and his 
property was confiscated for the use of the Republic, or 
rather of the Buonaparte family. Another day, when he 
observed an American merchant in an elegant English 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



m. 



pbJBton, drawn by four English horses, he ordered him to 
descend; and when he refused, four of General Le Clerc's 
guides dragged the American from his carriage, which 
Jerome afterwards appropriated to his own use. After 
the war with England, when Jerome bravely deserted 
over to the American continent, this merchant cited him 
before the American tribunals, to be paid for his plundered 
property.* 

Jerome Buonaparte now resides at Baltimore, with an 
American named Joshua Barney, who, by piracy and plun^ 
der under the famous Santhonax, has accumulated several 
millions of livres. This is the same Barney who com- 
manded, during the last war, an American ship called the 
Sampson, with which he privateered without commission, 
and for v^'hich he was tried and condemned at Jamaica as 
a pirate^ but escaped the gallows by flight. He wa^ after- 
wards made commodore in the French service; and keiit 
at Paris, as a mistress, a cousin of Madame Buonaparte, by 
whom he had two children, but whom he afterwards left 
in distress, which caused him to be dismissed from the 
French navy. It is therefore hardly possible that Jerome 
can be in more suitable company than that of Citizen Bar- 
ney. 

The official Moniteur lately published the official repuh^ 
lican truths that Citizen Jerome, in his retreat to America, 
sunk an English shipof superior force. Many think \tvenj 
modest of the editor not to let this noble youth sink a whole 
English squadron in the Moniteur; which might have 



* The affair of the carriage is in fact, that on Jerome's ar- 
rival at Baltimore, the Hon. Captain Murray, of the British 
navy, was in that city icith a handsome curricle and two 
horses and a saddle horse, ivhich he offered for sale ; the car- 
riage and horses were bought for ^900 for Jerome. On his 
anival at Philadelphia, a piece appeared in the Gazette of 
the United States, saying, that this was the carriage that 
icas plundered of an American at St. Domingo; hut on the 
next day when the Editor was informed of the truth, the 
report was contradicted, and a suit was instituted against the 
printer for the paragraph, this is the only suit brought on 
that occasion. 



IQO 



REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 



procured the First Consul an occasion of appointing hia 
worthy brother, at once, a lord high admiral of the French 
Republic. 

According to the Livre Rouge, Jerome has a yearly 
pension, until married, of six hundred thousand iivies; 
for the hotel and two estates in the country, at his future 
establishment, one million and a half are allotted ; and 
one million is deposited in foreign banks for his use. Of 
what value the presents are which he receives from his 
consular brother, may be concluded from the known anec- 
dote, of his having shewn an English officer at Jamaica a 
watch set with jewels, which he, with true Corsican impu- 
dence, said, cost the bagatelle of ten thousand Louis-d'ors 
enly. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 19I 

Js a full refutation of the foregoing calumnies^ relative 
to Commodore Barney, and injustice to the merits of this gen- 
tleman, I have procured from the proper authorities, the foU 
lowing indisputable testimonials contradictory of the account 
given by the author of this work, and am sorry that circum- 
stances do not admit of displaying the real character of Je- 
rome Buonaparte, as exhibited during his stay among us, of 
upiuards of tico years, which icould shew his character very 
different from the one given by the author of this work. 

American Editor. 



Joshua Barney served during the whole of the Ame- 
rican war in the navy of the United States, with distin- 
guished reputation, which is too well known to require 
many observations. 

Joshua Barney commanded a merchant ship from the 
port of Baltimore in 1775, and was among the first who 
embarked in the navy of the United States from this port, 
in October 1775, as Master's mate ; in June 1776, he was 
made a Lieutenant, in March 1782, a Captain. In April 
he took the General Monk, a ship of superior force, which 
is well known to every American, and some of the British, 
for which he received a gold hilted sword. 

In April 1793, he sailed from Baltimore in the private 
shipSawzp^o/i, belonging to himself and Mr. John Hollins. 
See the following document from the department of state. 

" It appears from documents in the department of State, 
that the ship Sampson, belonging to Messrs. Joshua Barney, 
and John Hollins, was captured in the year 1793, on a 
voyage from Cape Francois to St. Marks', by three New 
Providence privateers, who put on board of her three prize 
masters and eleven men, and ordered her for New Provi- 
dence : — ^.That the former gentleman, who also commanded 
the vessel, having been very rudely and severely treated by 
tiie captors, found means to rescue his vessel from them, 
and proceeded with her to Baltimore, where he arrived on 
the 30th of July of the same year :— That on the next 
Voyage, whilst he was proceeding from Port-au-Prince to 



192 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Baltimore, he was captured by the British Frigate Pene- 
lope, Captain Rowley, who sent her to Jamaica :— And 
that on her arrival there, Captain Barney was committed 
to prison under a charge of piracy, pretended to have been 
committed by the above-mentioned rescue, but was after- 
wards admitted to bail in consequence of the persuasion 
of the Chief Justice, that the charge could not be sup- 
ported. I have always understood and believed that a re- 
gular trial and acquittal took place. Restitution was de- 
creed for the capture last mentioned by the commissaries 
under the 7th article of the British Treaty to the amount 
of c£25,()00 Sterlmgand upwards. 

Department of State, August 19, 1806. 

Jacob Wagner, Clerk.'* 



In December, when on a second voyage, he was captur- 
ed and carried into Jamaica and thrown into prison, as 
stated above. Two bills were found against him by the 
Grand Jury of Jamaica, one for piracy, and the other for 
shooting with intention to kill the prize master, at the 
time he recaptured his ship Sampson. Captain Barney 
stood his trial before the Court and Jury at Jamaica, and 
after a full hearing, and without a reply on the part of 
Captain Barney, the Jury declared him not guilty. His 
ship Sampson and cargo was condemned, and an appeal 
was made to Great Britain. In April 1794, he returned in 
the vessel which was dispatched from Baltimore, to the 
United States, and waited on General Washington, who 
informed him he was happy to fmd he had escaped out of 
their hands, meaning the British; as his ship had been con- 
-demned in Jamaica. Captain Barney brought his papei^ 
with him. 

The president of the United States (General Wash- 
ington) hearing of his situation, caused the secretary of 
state, Mr. Randolph, to enter into a correspondence with 
the British minister, Mr. Hammond^ respecting him. See 
the correspondence. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 195 

Copy of a letter from the Secretary of State, to George 
Hammond, Esq. Minisler Plempotentiary of His Britannic 
Majesty y dated 



Philadelphia, March 27, 1794. 

Sir, 

I have just received intelligence that Joshua Barney, a 
citizen of the United States, has been confined in the com- 
mon goal of Kingston in Jamaica, and was to have been 
tried on the 3d instant, in the Admiralty Court of that 
island, on a charge of piracy and an intention to kill. He 
was the late commander of the ship Sampson, the property 
of himself and John Hollins, another citizen of the United 
States, and sailed under our flag at the time of his seizure 
by the British Frigate Penelope. 

I entertain a hope and confidence, that these suspicions 
have, before this day, been shewn to be groundless; and 
that he is no longer under the pressure of a criminal pro- 
secution. But lest this should not be the fact, I beg leave 
to represent to you that a real interest h taken in his fate ; 
and that as it will be extremely painful to hear of any ri- 
gorous event, the speedy interposition of your good offices 
to prevent such an one, will be very gratifying to him, who 
has the honour of subscribing himself, &c. 

Edm. Randolph. 



Mr. Hammond in answer. 

! Philadelphia, March 27, 1794. 
Sir, 

I have the honour of transmitting to you a letter to the 
Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica, on the subject of your 
letter to me of this date. 

Z 



194 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCIl 

The Secretaay of State to Mr.Hammonix. 

Philadelphia, March 28, 1794, 
Sir, 

I was last night honoured with your letter of yesterday, 
and am much obliged to you for its inclosure. 

In the interview at my office upon the subject of it, I 
certainly explained myself as intending to go no further in 
requesting you to forward your communication to the Go- 
vernor of Jamaica, than as an opportunity might be pre- 
sented through one of your vessels of war, which are not 
liable to the embargo, and might happen to be destioed 
thither. I presumed however, that if such an opportunity 
did not occur, you would send to me the letter to the Go- 
vernor, as in fact you have. 

It is contemplated by the President to expedite a cut- 
ter to Jamaica to-morrow, or on the next day. If you 
have any dispatches for that island, I will take charge of 
them; and if it would not eive you too much trouble, I 
would thank you for a duplicate of your letter to the Go- 
vernor. 

I have the honour, &c. 

Edm. Randolph, 



Mr. Hammond in answer. 

Philadelphia, March 28, 1794, 



Sir, 






In answer to your letter of this date, it is only necessary 
for me to remark to you that the hasty conversation which 
passed between us at your nffice, and to which you alhide, 
"was subsequent and not antecedent to my receipt of your 



THE BUONAPARTE FAIMILY. 195 

lettet" of yesterday — 3.nd to inclose to you a duplicate of 
my letter to the Governor of Jamaica. 

I am much obliged to you for your offer of taking charge 
of any dispatches which I might have for Jamaica, and I 
have the honour to be, Sec. 

George Hammond. 

The preceding copies and extract have been compared 
with the records of the department of State, and are found, 
exact. 

Jacob Wagner, Cleric. 



Previous to the arrival of the cutter at Jamaica, merj- 
tioned by Mr. Randolph, and sent by the President for the 
relief of Joshua Barney, he had stood his trial and w^as /«//?/ 
acquitted. On the arrival of the cutter, with Mr. Ham- 
mond's dispatches to the Governor, (General Vv^illiamson) 
Joshua Barney was invited to Spanish-town, the residence- 
of the Governor, where he dined several times, and receiv- 
ed every politeness from his Excellency, who declared he 
had never heard of Joshua Barney's continement, before he 
had received the dispatches. In INIay 1794, Joshua Bar- 
ney arrived at Baltimore in the cutter which was sent by 
the President, and immediately waited upon him at Phila- 
delphia. On the 5th of June 1794, Joshua Barney was 
appointed a Captain in the navy of the United States, by 
General Washington. See certificate as follows : 



War Department, June 5, 1794. 

Captain Joshua Barney, 

Sir, 

" The President of the United States by and with the 
" advice and consent of the Senate, has appointed you to 



iOG REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

" be a Captain of one of the ships, to be provided in pur- 
" sLiance of the act to provide a naval armament herein 
" enclosed." 

I certify that the above is a true extract of a letter v^^xit- 
ten by the Secretary of War, to Captain Joshua Barney, 
and recorded in Marine Book No. 1. p. 32. 

Ch. W. GoLDSBOROUGir, 

Chief Clerk of the Navy Department. 



In August 1794, Joshua Barney arrived at Paris, in com- 
pany with Mr. Munroe, the Minister of the United States. 
See the proceedings of the National Convention, as fol- 
lows : 



Proceedings of the Natio?ial Cotwentioriy Friday September 

12, 1794. 

The President. 

I have received a letter written in English, announcing 
that the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States 
of America, sends a flag to be placed in the Hall of the 
Convention, beside the French flag. The flag is borne by 
an American officer. It was unanimously decreed, that 
the officer should enter the Hall. He entered amidst the 
loudest acclamations of the assembly, bearing the Ameri- 
can flag unfurled. He presented the following address 
from the Minister. 



,.THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



197 



The Ministe:^ 01* the United States of America, 
TO THE President of the National Convention. 

Paris, 23c? Fructidor, 
Citizen President, 

The Convention living decreed thaf. the flags of the 
American and Frenc\ Republic sliail be united and fh^ to- 
gether in the place of'-he sittings of the National Conven- 
tion, in testimony of tht. union and friendship which ought 
ever to subsist between lie two people. I thought that I 
could not better manife-s, the'profound impression which 
the decree made upon ni?, and the acknovv^ledgments of 
my constituents, than by [^eparing their colours, in order 
to offer them, in their naii^, to the Representatives of the 
French people. 

I have bad them execute?, after the manner last decreed 
by the Congress, and I have intrusted them to Captain 
Barney, an officer of distirgu\shed merit, who rendered 
us great services by sea during the revolution. He is 
charged to present them to }ou, and to place them where- 
ever you shall appoint. Accept then, this flag. Citizen 
President, as a new pledge oi the sensibility with which 
the American people always rceive the proofs of interest 
and friendship, given to them by their good and brave 
allies, as well as the pleasure aid eagerness witK which 
they improve every circumstanctthat tends to cement and 
consolidate the union and concorc of the two nations. 



(Signed) 



James Munroe. 



Speech of Captain Barney on presenting the Flag. 



Citizen President, 

Having been charged by the Minister Plenipotentiary 
of the United States of America, to bear to \he Convention 
the flag which they desired. The flag under the auspices 



198 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

of which I had the honour to fight with rur common ene- 
my, in tiie war which accompUshed our liberty and inde- 
pendence. I fulfill my honourable copimission with the 
most lively satisfaction, and remit it irto your hands. 

From henceforth, suspended beside that of the Repub- 
lic, it shall become the symbol of lie union which sub- 
sists between the two nations, and which shall endure, I 
trust, as long as the liberty which they so bravely achiev- 
ed, and so wisely ratified. 

A Member. The officer wlo has just spoken to you 
from the bar, is one of the nost distinguished military 
men of America. He essentialy contributed to the liberty 
of his own country. He my be equally serviceable in 
giving liberty to France. I desire that this observation 
may be sent to the Committee of Public Safety, and that 
the President shall give the jiaternal embrace to this brave 
man. — The embrace was ec'ioedfrom all parts of the Hall, 
and was decreed. 

The American officer advmced with his flag streaming 
to the President's chair, wlo gave him the fraternal kiss, 
amidst the unanimous and eiterated applause of the Hall. 

Matthieu. One of ou^ colleagues, in rendering homage 
to the talents and services of this brave man, has said that 
he might be usefully enpioyed by our Republic. I second 
the motion, that this observation be referred to the Com- 
mittee. Ordered. 

Joshua Barney waj employed in the navy of France, 
first as Captain de va^sseau, (Captain of a ship of the line) 
and afterwards as a commissioned Commodore during the 
whole of the war. When the peace took place Joshua 
Barney demanded his dismission, which was refused him; 
but a commission with a pension was granted him, which 
pension Joshua Ba'ney never would receive. At the same 
time a general re^'ulation took place respecting strangers 
in the navy, a/luded to in the Minister of Marine's letter 
to Joshua Barney — See that letter. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



199 



Premiere Division, Bureau de Pofficier militaire. 

Liberte Egalitc. 

Paris y /e 11 Nirose, An 10 de la Republique une et indivisible^ 

Le Ministre de la Marine et des Colonies, au Citoyen 
Barney, ancien Capitaine de Vaisseaux de la Republique, 
rue basse du rempart No. 351. a Paris. 

Si les dispositions g^n^rale suivie dans la dernicre orga- 
nisation de la Marine de la Republique, Citoyen, n'ont 
pa permis de vous comprendre sur la ligne des officiers 
conserve au service, il n'en est pa moin vrai que dans 
votre retraite honorable, vous eniportez Tamiti^ et la con- 
sideration de la Marine Francaise que apprecie vos talens ; 
es i'estime du gouvernment qui les a eniyloy^. 

C'est un temoignage qui vous est du et qu*ilmesera 
toujour agreable de rendre a un militaire tel que vous. 

Decrcs. 



First department^ Office of the Military Officers. 
Liberty. Equality. 

Paris, llth Nivose lOth year of the Republique one and 

indivisible. 

The Minister of the Marine and the Colonies to Citizen 
Barney, late Captain of the navy of the Republick. 
Rue d'Bassa du rampart No. 351. Paris. 

Citizen, 

If tiie general dispositions followed in the late organiza- 
tion of the navy of the Republick, have not permiti:ed that 
your name should be retained in the list of officers re- 
served for the service ; it is nevertheless true, that ni your 
honourable retirement you will carry with you the friend- 
ship and the consideration of the French navy, which duly 
appreciates your talents; and also the cstetm oi the go- 
vernment which has employed them. 



200 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

This is an acknowledgment which is due to you, -and 
which will always be agreeable to me, to render to a man 
of your mililary talents. 

Decres. 

Captain Barney, and Mr. John Hollins, his partner, has 
recovered .£^5.,000 Sterling for the ship Sampson and her 
cargo, condemned at Jamaica, at the time Captain Barney 
was tried for ])\rdcy. 

These are the justifications of Joshua Barney against 
the malicious observations of the author, &c. 



201 

HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS 

PRINCESS JOS. BUONAPx\RTE. 

MARIA Julia Clary, daughter of a chandler in a vil- 
lage in the south of France, was, at the age of seventeen, 
on the 24th of September 1794, married to the then clei'k 
of a pettifogging attorney, Napoleone Joseph Buonaparte, 
at present an Imperial Highness, a Grand Elector of the 
French Empire, a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, 
Sec. &c. with a revenue often ;T\illions of livres, or 420 000/. 
The Princess Joseph had in her youth many admirers, and 
Prince Joseph, during his courtship, many rivals. In her 
native village the Princess was an heiress. An uncle, who 
had been a sailor, had, at his death, bequeathed to her all 
his property, amounting to six hundred livres (-5/.) No 
wonder, therefore, if all the beaus of the neighbourhood 
were enamoured, and striving who should be foremost, at tlie 
same time to seizea treasure andxo possess so many charms. 
Among the principal amateurs with whom his Imperial High- 
ness Prince Joseph the Grand Elector had to contend for his 
Imperial consort, a master chimney-sweeper, a master bar- 
ber, and a journeyman tailor, presented themselves. Al- 
though the lowest, the journeyman tailor was not the less 
dangerous rival. He had made Mademoiselle Clary a great- 
coat which fitted her so well, that it excited the envy of all 
the other village belles ; and she, in return, at the Sunday 
four-sous or twopenny balls, at the inn of the Grand Mo- 
narque, seemed to prefer romping and dancing with her 
journeymantailor rather than with Prince Joseph. To get 
rid of him by force, his Imperial Highness dared not at- 
tempt, having already experienced .t^^strength of his fist : 
• he resorted therefore to stratagem. J^Captain of a recruit- 
ing party had for some days established his head-quarters in 
the vicinity. This officer happened to be a friend of the 
then sans-culotte Colonel Napoleone Buonaparte, and was 
Jipplied to. The register of the parish being destroyed, the 
journeyman tailor was unable to prove his age, and was 
therefore claimed by the Captain us a conscript ; and as such, 
notwithstanding the. opposition of the municipality, carried 
off, and marched to join the armv of the Pvranecs. 

A a ' 



202 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

This act of vigour terrified the barber, who, being of the 
same age with the tailor^ immediately decamped. The 
sweep stHl bravely kept the field, and continued His court- 
ship, until the fair object of his affection had fixed on the 
next decade (the republican holiday) as the day on which her 
nuptials with the Prince were to be celebrated at the munici- 
pality, and her union sanctioned by the reputable mayor of 
thevillage, a learned schoolmaster, though he understood nei- 
ther Latin nor Greek. The marriage contract of their Im- 
perial Highnesses was witnessed and signed by the bride's 
father and naother, or rather they put their mark, not being 
able to write or read, as did two maternal uncles, Citizens 
Timothee Galliard, a wooden shoemaker fsabottevj and 
Francois Galliard, a groom. An elegant wedding ball was 
bespoken at the inn of the Grand Monarque for twelre livres 
(ten shillings) including music and twelve bottles of wine, at 
three sous (three halfpence), a bottle. There the new mar- 
ried couple and their relations and friends continued to dance 
until next morning, when Monsieur and Madame Clary 
gave the signal of retreat. 

Besides six hundred livres in ready money (25L^ the Prin- 
cess brought with her to her husband's apartment (a back 
room, two pair of stairs, at a blacksmith's) two gowns, two 
shifts, two petticoats, two neckcloths, one pocket-handker- 
chief, one comb, twa pair of shoes, one pair of wooden 
shoes (a present of uncle Timothee's) and a horse-whip, an- 
other present of uncle Francois. 

Thus his Imperial Highnebs Prince Joseph began his ma- 
ti-imonial career with triumph and glory. Keen obsei'vers 
predicted thence, that the able politician, who, in a love af- 
fair of such consequence, had been clever enough to defeat 
the conspiracies and plans of his powerful riv^als and carry 
his point, would certainly in state affairs one day prove him- 
self to be the first negotiator in the world, overthrow the 
common efforts of the enemies of the French Republic, and 
counterbalance the intrigues of neutrals, and the jealousy of 
allies. 

Six months after their marriage, her Imperial Highness 
presented her husband with a son and heir ; the gossips of 
her village with an object of slander ; the prudes with a sub- 
ject of malice, and the devotees with an example of acandaL 
All parties exerted their tongues^ and whilst the father was 
proud of a son in so short a time, they pretended and disse- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



203 



miiiated that he resembled the tailor, the barber, and even 
the sweep, more than Joseph Buonaparte. In a week this 
"hope of the iamily, ihis Emperor in petto, died, and the 
Imperial parents, according to the advice of the midwife, an 
aunt of her Imperial Highness, to silence all farther tittle- 
latde, consented to announce and regard this birth- — a mis- 
carriage. From that period until 1801 the Princess had no 
children, and as the visit of Eugenius de Btauhornois had 
become very fieqiient at his uncle^s, during 1800, calumny 
ascribed to his presence the appearance of one daughter on 
the 8th of July 1 801^ and anothe** on the 3 1st of October, 1802. 
Prince Joseph then asked his nephew, Prince Eugenius, to 
confer his civilities somewhere else, and with his absence 
sterility again returned. 

It was in 1795 that the Princess Joseph was, for the first 
time, introduced into the revolutionary court circles of the 
Directory ; but the attention paid her by the Director Barras 
occasioned her journey to Italy in 1797, when, after the 
peace of Campo Formio, her husband had been nominated 
an ambassador to the Court of Rome. Having succeeded 
in his mission to dethrone and imprison a respectable Pontiff, 
and to organize in the name of liberty and equality, the worst 
of all tyrannies, that of a savereign mob, he went back to 
Paris with his wife, and settled there, being elected a De- 
puty in the Council of Five Hundred. When Napoieone 
had seized on the throne of the Bourbons, he appointedjo- 
seph a Counsellor of State, and gave to the Princess Joseph, 
in December 1799, as a Christmas-box, the elegant hotel 
she occupies, upon condition that she should improve \itr 
education. 

Before that time her Imperial Highness knew very well 
how -to knit and mend stockings, how to work and get up 
linen, how to starch and bleach, how to cook and preserve, 
how to brush and scour ; but she was entirely unacquainted 
with those petty acquirements — that agreeable littleness — 
those vicious frivolities — rthat studied meanness, which were 
intended to constitute at the revolutionary Imperial Court 
good breeding and haut ton. Madame Napoieone was there- 
fore ordered to spare her teacher of languages, a writing and 
a dancing master, a master of ceremonies, a coejfeur^ and 
a governness. Such were the assiduity and application of 
Princess Joseph, that within three months the good-natured 



204 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Empress Josephine began to think that she had done too 
much for her sister-in-law, and therefore recalled all ihe 
teachers she had Itint her. But the change both in her gait 
and manner evinced that she had already learned enough, 
and gained the admiration of all the revolutionary courtiers 
ip the palace of the Thuilleries. Before that she was ra- 
ther awkward (by courtesy called timid) and inclined to de- 
votion (called by courtesy, simplicity) — now she is the very 
reverse — as free, as eas%', as bold, as daring and as gallant 
as Josephine or aEny other of her sisters-in law. It was even 
shortly afterwards whispered, that during her husband's ab- 
sence at Luneville a*^.d Amiens, she continued to take every 
night at Montfontaine, the private lessons of her dancing- 
master : so much so, that Prince Joseph, from motives of 
gratitude, no doubt, demanded in the summer 1802, an or- 
der from Napoleone for sending this active citizen to Cay- 
enne^ widi the exclusive privilege of continuing during his 
life, an exclusive dancing-master of honour to all transported 
persons of both sexes in that colony. 

The Princess Joseph, with her deep, cunning, reserved, 
and truly Corsican husband, sees now little other society 
but those of his family. She lives, however, in great splen- 
dour, both at his country seat Montfontaine and in her hotel 
at Paris. Her private and annual allowance from the 
Emperor amounts to three millions of livres (125,000/.) — 
Her jewels and diamonds are valued at two millions, and her 
plate, china and pictures at one million and a half. A bishop 
is her almoner, and two grand vicars her chaplains. Ma- 
dame Girardin (the ci-devant Marchioness) is her lady in 
•waiting, and Madame Dessoles, Madame Dupuy, and Ma- 
dame Biot, are her maids of honour. The Senator Jau- 
cour is her first chamberlain, and the Councellor of State Du- 
mas, her second chamberlain. The tribune, ci-devant Mar- 
quis Girardii; is her master of horse, and the Colonels Ca- 
vaignac and Lafond-Blaniac her equerries. The tribune 
Villot Freville is her secretary, and Mr. James the steward 
of her household, to which, besides, sixty-two other persons 
are attached. 



205 



MADAMi;: LUCIEN BUNONAPARTE. 

THE- former wife of Lucien Buonaparte, whom he mar- 
ried against the consent of her parents, when a clerfc toaj 
store-lce^per, was the daughter of a petty innkeeper at St. 
Maximin, a village in the south of France. Her portion 
was one hundred Louis d'ors, a large sum for a citizen sans 
culotte, with a salary of six hundred livres (25/. only) — Iti, 
the summer of 1 800, when a Aiinister of the home depart- 
ment, possessing a fortune of fifteen millions of livres,. 
(625,0G0/,) he presented her some ice-cream, which she 
ate, and died. That she had swallowed poison, her brother, 
relations, and all Paris proclaimed. 1 he motive for this 
act of barbarity, proposed and encouraged by Napoleone 
Buonaparte, was a hope of marrying.into some princely fa» 
mily, when any foreign princess could with safety be put in 
requisition for such a match^ 

In expectation of such an event, the First Consul gave 
his brother all possible opportunities of enriching himself, 
among others, the lucrative mission to Spain, in order to sell 
the kingdom of Etruria ; and to Portugal, to extort a con- 
siderable sum for the purchase of a peace. By these means, 
and by selling his protection in the interior, to emigrants and 
to state creditors, his wealth increased within three years to 
forty -four millions of livres, or nearly two millions sterling. 

As fortune continued to favour Napoleone's ambitious 
views and unbounded ambition, his hope of forming alli- 
ances with sovereign houses increased. It is said that he 
had fixed on a young Princess of Baden (who afterwards 
suddenly married a Prince of Brunswick) a sister of tlic 
Empress of Russia, of the Queen of Sweden, and of the 
Electress of Bavaria, as a future sister-in-law, when Lucien, 
consulting his own feelings more than policy or prudence, 
disappointed all the hopes of the Buonapartes, by marrying 
the young and rich widow of an arm.y contractor, whom the 
revolution found a starving porter, and wJio died in 1802, 
worth eighteen millions of livres (750,000/.) 

Napoleone is indebted to the presence of mind of his bro- 
ther Lucien, for his success in placing him on the throne of 
the Bourbons:; because, when on the 9th of November 
1799, Arena and other Deputies of the Council of Five 



206 [REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARGH. 

Hundred, in the sitting at St. Cloud, shewed their daggers, 
and demanded a decree of outlaw against the usurper, Buo- 
naparte lost all recollection, and was, trembling, retreating 
out of the hall. At that critical moment Lucien, who was 
the President of the Council, called to the grenadiers not to 
desert or suffer their general to be insulted. This appeal 
decided the fate of Napoleone and of France. The very- 
grenadiers who were ready to dispatch their commander as 
an outlaw, turned their bayonets against the representatives 
of the people as against conspirators. 

After this event it cannot be surprising that Lucien ob- 
tained great influence in his brother's government, and that 
he supposed that sentiments of gratitude, more than ties of 
consanguinity, bound his brother to him for life. But per* 
haps the Emperor Napoleone thought the obligation of the 
First Consul Buonaparte too heavy, and therefore sought 
an occasion to rid himself o^, and disgrace a benefactor, for 
whose services he blushed as blemishes, or hated them as 
reproachful. Whatever were the motives that determined 
Napoleone*s behaviour, certain it is, that no sooner did he 
hear of Lucien's marriage, than he refused to acknowledge 
Madame Lucien as a sister-in-law, and forbade her the 
court. The priest who had married them was transported 
to Cayenne ; his sister the Princess of Santa Cruce, and her 
husband, who had been present at the wedding, were ba- 
nished to Italy ; five senators, three tribunes, and three ge- 
nerals, who had also signed the marriage-contract, and wit- 
nessed the reciprocal settlemens of the bride and bride- 
groom, lost their places, and were exiled forty leagues from 
Paris. The Notary by whom these acts had been deposited, 
alter being confined in the Temple, was deprived of his of- 
iices, ordered to reside at Angers, and under pain of death 
to come no more to Paris, or transact business in the country. 

This eclat convinced Lucien that his brotlier was highly 
irritated, but he did not expect that he was irreconcilable^ 
^e therefore wrote him several letters, expostulating with 
moderation on the Emperor's unkindness to himself and 
^is friends. To these he received no answer, but a verbal 
order by the prefect of the palace, Duroc, not to trouble 
Napoleone v/ith his correspondence, as his letters would 
remain unopened. The same evening Lucien, who now saw 
his brother's intention, rushed hastily through a private back 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 207^ 

door to which he had the key, into the imperial closet, and 
drawing a pistol from his pocket, after pointing it at his bro- 
ther's head, pulled the trigger, but it missed fire. His pre* 
sence so much astonished Napoleone, that he did not call 
for assistance before another pistol pointed at his head had 
also missed fire. He then rang a bell, and two of his aids* 
de-camps, Savary and Rapp, entered, and to them he deli- 
vered up Lucien as a prisoner, with orders to carry him to 
the Temple immediately, and to have him tried the next 
day as a regicide conspu'ator. To prevent the interference 
of his mother, brothers, or sisters, in behalf of the crimi- 
nal, they were excluded from his presence until the sentence 
of the Military Commission was carried into execution. 

In this dilemma, all the other Buonapartes assembled, and 
wrote an united petition to Napoleone. It was presented tO; 
him by his favourite Mameluke, Ruostan, who, though he 
was Ignorant of its contents, was put under arrest for deli- 
vering it. Another petition, still more pathetic, w^as then 
written, to be kid by his bed-side, but all his pages and 
chamberlains refused to place it there. None of the Buo- 
napartes but Napoleone went to bed that night, all being up 
contriving how to save Lucien, but in vain. It v/as near the* 
hour when the Military Commission was to assemble, before 
any resolution was agreed on. Madame Louis Buonaparte 
then took upon herself to write, in the name of the Empe- 
ror, an order to dissolve the Commission, and to restore 
Lucien to liberty. But no sooner had she signed Napole- 
one^s name, than from terror she fell into fits, and as her 
Rfe was in danger, General Murat informed hira of it, with- 
out mentioning what had caused this sudden indisposition. 
The Emperor flew in an instant to the hotel of his dearest 
beloved daughter-in-law, conjured her to calm herself, and 
promised for her sake not only to pardon Lucien, but to per- 
mit him to retire and live in Italy with all his pi'operty. 1 his 
his wife thought a fit moment to avow her daughter's fault. 
A iter a silence of some moments, during which his agita- 
tion was visible, he at last stammered out, as in a rage, 
" You have taken the advantage of my weakness. For this 
time I forgive you ; but even this head shall tumble under 
the axe of the guillotine," said he, touching the head of Ma- 
dame Louis, "" if 1 hear of such an unpardonable audacity 
a second time*" 



208 REVOLUXrONARY PLUTARQH. 

The next day Lucien received a pass for himself and his 
wife for Milan, but he could not obtain an audience, though 
he desired it to take place in the presence of his mother and 
his brother Joseph. He therefore set out for Italy, -where 
he bought several estates for ready monev, and exchanged 
his estates in France for others. Until the.Senatus Consul- 
tus ot the 18th May 18o4 was published, when he saw him- 
self excluded not only from all hope of succeeding to the 
throne, but even of the rank of an Imperial Highness, he 
remained quiet, and lived retired. But after he was inform- 
ed of it, he disposed of the greatest part of his Italian pro- 
perty for bills of exchange on Hamburgh and London ; and 
it is supposed that he has, under a fictitious name, money to 
an immense amount in the English funds. After this mea- 
sure of precaution, he wrote to his brother Napoleone the 
following letter : 

''Rimini, June 2d, 1804-. 
" You cannot possibly think me such a fool as to suppose 
that my marriage with an honest and respectable woman, 
though of no high birth, occasioned your late ungrateful and 
furious conduct. No! you, as Avell as m} self, must remem- 
ber who we were by birth, who our own mother is, and who 
were our father and grand-parents. No ! you wanted to de- 
grade, to murder, the benefactor vou had insulted. You 
knew also, that I was master of the birth and exit of the 
first and noble Madame Napoleone ; and that it was impos- 
sible for me to accept of a wife from your hands — already 
stained with the blood of your own wife, and that put the 
poison into my hands which made me a widower. I was too 
well acquainted with your cruel disposition, without so much 
scandalous behaviour, to attempt, after your threats, to re- 
side near you, and expose my wife to tlie stilettoes of your 
bravoes, or the draughts of your other accomplices. Had 
you, even after the first explosion, consented to a reconcilia- 
tion, I should, notwithstanding, have dreaded the treachery 
and ferocity of your dark and barbarous heart, and resided 
at a distance from you, had I deferred to remove the object 
of my just fear. 

"• A patricide and liberticide has no parents, no relations, 
and no country. He is outlawed by the law of Nature as 
well as by the law of nations. Every body has a right, and 
is commanded by self-defence, to purge the eai'th of a mon- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. Q09 

•4(ef, dishonouring and vilifying ks species. Had tny at- 
tempt on your life succeeded, I should have been hailed us a 
Brutus, instead of being arraigned as a fratricide. >Ian- 
kind, however, was ignorant of the real cause that put the 
bullets in my pistols. 

*"" I had long in my own mind resolved to reduce to dust 
tlie pagan idol I had erected. Yes ! you know that the first 
day of your Consulate would have been the last, had not my 
misguided affection commiserated the pale ^^nd trembling 
conspirator, and preserved a cowardly impostor from the 
national vengeance, I reperi,ted of my v/ork very soon in- 
deed ; because I very soon observed that all liberal ideas of 
liberty, generosity, and humanity, were excluded from your 
despotic, depraved and unfeeling bosom. I was, however^ 
until lately, weak enough to expect an amendment ; but every 
public and private transaction of yours, during these last 
two years, convinced me finally that my expectation would 
l>e vain* Then my duty as a citizen, as a patriot^ and as a 
philosopher, called on me to annihilate tyranny, by destroy- 
ing the tyrant. 

'' The late Senatus Consultus of your base and slavish 
Senate, in making the distance between you and me — a ty- 
rant and a patriot — so immeasurable, will reconcile me to all 
friends of real liberty ; and present and future generations, 
in cursing you and your memory, will bless me, and mine^ 
only for having intended to punish you. 

"But tremble, tyrant! though I am absent ; near your 
own person, among your own guards, among your own 
courtiers, in your own palace^ the avenger of violated free- 
dom, of outraged humanity, and of oppressed nations, re- 
sides. He accompanies you as your shade* Depend upon 
it, your tyranny is at an end the moment you least expect 
it. Perhaps even at this instant you reign no more—- you 
have reigned." 

It is said that this letter was stopped by Madame Buona- 
parte the mother, and never reached Napoleone ; but copies 
of it were circulated by Lucien and his adherents, both in 
Italy and France, at Milan and at Paris. 

At tlie same time that Lucien wrote thus to his Imperial 
brother, he sent a confidential person to Warsaw with ano*^ 
ther letter to Louis XVIII. wherein he offered his Sovereign 
'*■ a.l his rich;:'S, his influence, and his arm ; with the influ- 

B b 



210 REVOLUTIONARY PLUI ARCH. 

cnce and arms of his nutnerous friends ; nil ready to sacri- 
fice themseh'^es with him for the restoration of their legiti- 
mate King to the throne of his ancestors." He protested 
" that his brother had solemnly declared, on the 7th of No- 
veniber 1799, in the presence of himself, lalleyrand, Vol- 
ney, Rcederer, Moreau, M'Donald, Murat, and Lasnes, 
th^t he would only keep the supreme authorit}% could he ob- 
tain it, until a fit occasion offered itself to restore it to ita 
lawful owner with safety to all parties." From tliat period 
until his return from the battle of Marengo, he had fre- 
quently held the same language. It was only after that event 
that he evinced an intention of establishing his usurpation 
for himself on a permanent footing," etc. To this tardy 
and selfish repentance, the King of France could not listen, 
nor was any notice taken, either of the letter or the mes- 
senger. 

By his ill acquired wealth, and political hospitality, Lu- 
cien however gained many partizans in Piedmont, in Lom- 
bardy, and in the Papal territory. Holding himself out as 
a deliverer, all persons suffering from, or detesting the Re- 
volution, or wishing to break the yoke imder which they 
groaned, were assiduous in paying their devoirs to him. — 
Watched as he was by his brother's spies, those manoeuvres 
could not remain unnoticed or escape suspicion. His mo- 
ther warned him, by command^ to cease his machinations, 
but without effect. On the 19th of October 1804, his house 
near Rimini was therefore surrounded by the staff officers of 
General Jourdan's army. By this General he was arrested, 
and carried under safe escort a prisoner to the citadel of 
Mantua, where he was delirered up to its commander, Ge- 
neral Mainoni, who, on his own head, was to answer for 
his confinement. When the Pope in the following month 
arrived at Fontainbleau, the first favour he asked the Em- 
peror, according to Madame Buonaparte, the mother's in- 
structions, was the liberty of Lucien, and a permission for 
him and his wife and children to reside at a retired country 
sejit in the Ecclesiastical States. I'o this Napoleone con- 
sented with repugnance and bad grace ; and only on condi- 
tion that his brother should see lew strangers, keep up no 
correspondence, and bind himself never more to visit the 
territories of the French and Italian Republics. 

During her husband's imprisonment, Madame Lucitn 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 211 

was closely guarded In her own room by some gens d^armes 
d'Elite- For fear of being poisoned, her children's and her 
own nutriment consisted only of vegetables, eggs, milk, and 
biscuits baked withher own hands, and of flour ground by her 
servants in her presence. As she juvStly considers her appre- 
hensions still the same, she continues to follow the same diet, 
notwithstanding her husband's dissuasions, who fears it is 
injurious to her constitution. By her former husband she 
had two children, who are still alive ; and since her present 
marriage she has been delivered of two sons, baptized, ac- 
cording to Lucien's orders^ Julius Brutus, and Junius 
Brutus. 

In March .1805, Madame Lucien Buonaparte was sur- 
prised by an unexpected visit from Eugenius de Beauhar- 
nois, on a day when her husband was absent on a hunting 
party with two neighbouring noblemen. He informed her, 
*^ that he came on the part of the Emperor, to advise her, 
if the lives of her children were valuable to her, and if she 
had any real love for Lucien, to depart that day with her in- 
fants for France, where she and they should be treated with 
all possible delicacy and distinction, her fortune safe, and 
the advancement of her sons certain, upon her voluntarily 
renouncing her marriage, which a bull of the Pope should 
soon dissolve." This proposal she refused with firmness, 
and Eugenius said on leaving her, '*• One day. Madam, and 
not very far distant, you will be obliged to subscribe to harder 
conditions, and think it an imperial favour not to end your 
days at Cayenne." He left behind him a letter from Napo- 
leone to his brother, in which the latter was again txhorted 
to give up or divorce his wife. As the price of his obedi- 
ence, he should be directly created a Doge of Genoa, and 
an Imperial Highness, an annuity of three hundred thousand 
livres settled on his two sons, and Madame Lucien likewise 
enjoy her own property unmolested." — " In a month," said 
Napoleone, ** I hope to be at Milan; if you by submission 
to iny will, prove yourself worthy of the grandeur fortune 
has bestowed on our family, come there and embrace me- 
I shall then forgive you all that has happened, and reinstate 
you in the same rank and favour with Joseph and I^ouis. If 
you continue obstinate and refrectory, you must eternally re- 
nounce all hope of reconciliation, as I renounce you for ever 
as a brother." Instead of answering this letter, Lucien sent 



^13 REVOLUriONARY PLUTARCH. 

the very next day a trusty agent, to conclude, in his \^ife's 
name, the purchase of an estate in Bohemia, for which he 
had been bargaining near twelve months. 

On his anival at Turin in May 1805, Napoleone dis- 
patched his aid-de-camp, Le Brun, with another fraternal 
letter, but in it a sine qua 7ion to favour, was a divorce with 
Madame Lucien. He again offered him "to be a Doge of 
Genoa, and an Imperial Highness in France ; and he was 
given to understand, that the hand of a beautiful Princess 
of one of the most ancient sovereign families in Europe, 
would also recompense his obedience and his repentance." 
As no more notice was taken of this letter than the former, 
Napoleone in spite incorporated the Dogeship of the Ge- 
noese with his Emperorship of the French. This i ' not the 
only occasion, since Buonaparte's reign, that a petty family 
quarrel, or a momentary whim, has changed the destiny of 
a state, 

What can be the reason of this perseverance of Napole^ 
one to conciliate or to destroy Lucien ? A few words will 
explain the mystery. Of all his brothers, Lucien is the 
most enterprising, the most audacious, the ablest, and most 
criminal j af a disposition as obstinate, malicious, and re- 
vengeful, as his own. Could he persuade or commjind him 
to acknowledge a favour ; to stoop to be looked upon in 
France as a reprieved felon, and to renounce a wife he loves 
for another forced on him, the usurper's vanity would be as 
much flattered as his safety and interest promoted. But 
those worthy brothers well knew each other, and therefore 
must either be soon friends again, or one of them will in a 
short time cease to pollute the earth with his guilty existence* 

After the many astonishing changes witnessed within the 
last sixteen years, it would not be very surprising if a Julius 
Brutus or a Junius Brutus Buonaparte should one day pro- 
claim himself, by the support of the same bayonets that have 
elevated Napoleone, an Emperor of the French, and a King 
of Italy. As to Lucien's present patriotic jargon, of its 
value every loyal man is well aware, and it cannot make ma- 
ny dupes. Because he is disagreeing with his upstart bro- 
ther, he speaks now of liberty and philosophy, with the same 
sincerity, when quarrelling with his fellow-regicides, as Ro- 
bespierre, in 1794 (when thousands of victims perished daily 
by the guillotine, by shooting, and drowning,) spoke of his 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 313 

humanity and patriotism. French rebels always become pa- 
triots and philanthropists when their popularity begins to de-» 
crease, or the day of their punishment approaches. Liberty, 
equality, and fraternitys are words always in their mouths 
when the daggers of rivals touch their breasts, or the halters 
of suspended justice their necks. 

Madame Lucien Buonaparte is in her twenty-third year ; 
her person is handsome, her manners accomplished, and her 
sentiments refined. But she was no doubt uninformed, be-» 
fore her present marriage, that in Lucien Buonapaitc she 
should embrace an assassin and a Septembri^^er. 




214 



PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE, 

AN IMPERIAL HIGHNESS. 

HORTENSE-EUGENIE, commonly called Fanny dc 
Beauharnois, is the daughter of Madame Napoleone Buon- 
aparte by her first husband, Viscount de Beauharnois, and 
was born on the 10th of April 1783. [See the early part of 
her life under the head of Fanny beauharnois, daughter of 
the Empress.] 

Princess Louis had scarce reached her first lustre when she 
saw her father a rebel. She had hardly passed her second 
lustre before she saw him punished for his rebellion by his 
fellow-rebels, and her mother prostitute herself in the arms 
of one of the regicide assassins of her King — an indirect 
assassin of her father. Before she was thirteen she witnes- 
sed her mother exchanging the adulterous embraces of a re- 
gicide Barras for those of a sanguinary terrorist, Buonaparte 
— a murderer, stained with the blood of eight thousand men, 
women and children, just butchered by him in the streets of 
Paris. If, after such examples of depravity before her eyes, 
she was preserved from the common contagion, it is to be 
ascribed to that innate worth, on which both seduction and 
corruption sometimes in vain throw out their venom, their 
insinuations, and their allurements. 

Immediately after her marriage, Madame Napoleone ob- 
serving her revolutionary husband's particular attention to his 
daughter-in-law, who was tall and much grown of her age, 
enquired after some boarding-school, in the vicinity of Paris, 
where she might place her. The republican philosophers of 
the National Convention and of the Jacobin Club, in des- 
troying and selling the public schools, academies, and colle- 
ges of France, had openly declared all education, private as 
well as public, both hurtful and unnecessary. " Children 
destined to be the defenders of the rights of man, and of 
liberty and equality," said these wiseacres, " should learn 
nothing but the republican constitution." Several school- 
masters and schoolmistresses, who continued, nevertheless, 
to instruct youth, were tried, condemned, and executed, as 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



^15 



conspirators against the Republic^ because they had permit- 
ted their pupils to read books in which Kings were mention- 
ed with other epithets than those of tyrants. These exam- 
ples of national justice^ abolished all private instruction soon- 
er than the decrees of the legislature or the threats of the 
Jacobins. At Robespierre's death, in July 1794, not a sin- 
gle school existed in the French capital. Had his reign 
been of some few years longer duration, Buonaparte would 
at present have tyrannized over slaves as ignorant and bru- 
talized as they would have been base, corrupted and wicked. 

U he Directory, which sucjceeded the National Conven- 
tion, permitted the establishment of private schools, under 
the inspection of the republicans, who were members of these 
public schools, called then, in their revolutionary jargon, 
Norman schools, free-thinkers in politics and morality as 
well as in religion. But though these establishments were 
permitted, they were neither numerous nor well conducted 
when Madame Buonaparte went in search of one for her 
daughter. She fixed, however, on that house at Versailles 
where an acquaintance of hers, Madame Campan, boarded 
and lodged young ladies. 

Madame Campan, a chambermaid of the late unfortunate 
Queen of France, Marie Antoniette, was from 1789 a se- 
cret admirer of the French rebellion, and secretly served 
the French rebels with whatever information she could pick 
up at court. She was accused of being one of the traitors 
who, in 1791, discovered to La Fayette the intention of the 
King and of the Royal Family to escape their goalers at Pa» 
ris ; she, of course, shares with some others the cruel re- 
proach of being one of the causes of all the enormous crimes 
perpetrated since, and all the consequences of the arrest of 
the Royal travellers at Varennes. This lady had hired at 
Versailles, one of the spacious hotels confiscated by the na- 
tion, as belonging to emigrants, where she had organized^ 
rather upon an extensive scale, a seminary for young persons 
of her own stx. Having had herself the advantage of a lib- 
eral education, and at court numerous lessons of good-breed- 
ing ; she was very fit for the undertaking, had not her revo- 
lutionary mania, though she had suffered from, and seen all 
the evils of the Revjlution, made her introduce, even in 
teaching youth, some revolutionary innovations. It is very- 
probable, that these very defects procured the preference 



216 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH- 

Napoleone Buonaparte gave her. But although he approx'ed 
of the general plan of her institution, he too had his revo- 
lutionary mania. Having his reasons for fearing the exist- 
ence of a remunerator of virtue, and an avenger of guilt, 
he was particularly zealous to overthrow all belief in the 
Christian religion. He therefore gave Madame Campan 
some private instructions concerning the religious creed in 
which she was to bring up his dear Fanny, They are too 
sacrilegiously curious, as coming from the pen of the pre- 
sent MUST Christian Emperor of the French, to be left 
out. " 1. He positively forljids all visits to his daughter-in- 
law of priests, constitutional as well as refractory, and all 
conversation with this class of fanatics or impostors. 2. He 
enjoins the governess to prevent all attempts of instilling in- 
to the mind of her pupil the usually erroneous ideas concern- 
ing Christianity ; a faith proved by historians false, by phi- 
losophers absurd, and by moralists dangerous. 3. The re- 
ligion of Nature is more than sufficient to improve the wise, 
to console the good, and to terrify the wicked. 4. I'he ca- 
techism, and other works of the theophilanthrophists, might 
be given his daughter to read and meditate on, were she 
judged to harbour any natural inclination to vice. 5. As it 
is however supposed, from what has hitherto been seen of 
her, that Nature has created her originally good, and that 
her natural instinct is for virtue, the reasonable philosophy 
2iiid pure morality of Spinosa and of Helvetius may be taught. 
6. An implicit obedience to her parents is to be implanted 
in her mind, and she is to be taught always to submit her own 
understanding and thoughts to their better and maturcr judg- 
ment ; if she seems to hesitate about obeying this duty, it 
will be necessary to remind her often, that to them alone she 
is indebted for her physical and moral existence ; that they 
alone, not from duty but from generosit}-, supply her neces- 
sities, and even procure her superfluities at a time when so 
many other children of her age are starving from want, or 
perishing from diseases brought on by penury, 7. She is 
never to be permitted or instructed to pray ; if she believes 
in a God, her prayers are improper and insulting ; because 
by them she evinces no confidence in, but doubts of his pro- 
vidence ; her prayers in telling him her wants and desires, 
reproach him with want of omnipotence, or of bounty. S. 
If she is found worthy of being educated a Spinosist, she 



THS BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 2ir 

yv'Al soon be convinced of the inefficacy and inutility of pray- 
ers ; that they jprocure no good aiid prevent no evil ; that 
"destiny, with or without them, goes on in its usual train, 
determined from and for eternity. 9. Let her well consider, 
that if the Grand Mechanic can prevent our troubles, and 
does not do it, he is no good being ; if he will but cannot 
prevent them, he is not all-powerful ; but if he neither will 
nor can prevent our misfortunes, his impotence is unworthy 
of the worship of such rational beings as men and women. 
These hints are sufficient to shew the ridicule of prayers, 
and to whom — to a Nonentity." 

Five other paragraphs follow these, but they are too blas- 
jphemous to be laid before loyal and religious readers. Those 
above translated, from their puerility and absurdity, are un» 
able to delude even the weakest, to dupe even the most igno- 
rant, or to furnish arguments even to the most sceptic. 
Tehy are, however, undeniable evidences of the impious 
sentiments of that infamous hypocrite and sacrilegious apos- 
tate, who at present perverts the heavenly morality of the 
Christian religion for the preservation of his tyranny, as he 
formerly employed the sophistical arguments of ah abomi- 
liable and dreadful atheism, to seduce and deceive the viciousj 
vile, and foolish instruments of his usurpation. 

Madame Campan was too much attached to her own in- 
terest, not to follow strictly the instructions of Buonaparte, 
who, at his return to Paris, after the peace of Campo For- 
inio, was highly delighted to find his dearest Fanny so much 
improved in her mind, manners, and conversation. His 
iirst question to her was, " Do you know, my dear girl, any 
thing of Jesus Christ ?" *' No, papa," said she ingenious- 
ly, *'• I have not the honour of being acquainted with sueh a 
citizen." *' And what do you think of God T" •"• Nothing ; 
if he does iiot think of me t never trouble my head aoout 
him." *^ Are you not afraid of him ?" *' No, I do nothing 
to fear any bod}." Several similar questions followed, and 
received similai: answers. '1 hey all persuaded Buonaparte 
that he had been punctually obeyed, and he therefore reward- 
ed Madame Campan with a diamond ring, originally worth 
twelve thousand livres (500/.) bat which did not cost him 
more than the signature of his name to an order forstrippino- 
it ctf the finger of a Madona at Vincensa. A gift presented 

C c 



^18^ REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

by Christian devotion to a Saint, was thus bestowed b)fa& 
atheistical zealot for propagating infidelity. 

In the winter 1796, during Buonaparte's absence in Egypt, 
his wife, contrary to his orders, introduced Mademoiselle 
de Beauharnois in the Directorial and other fashionable cir* 
cles. In one of those she met with a middle aged, respect- 
able looking man, who passed for a country farmer, whose 
relations were of the then haut ton. Speaking to her of her 
own father, and of the proscribed persons of the same class^ 
he demanded of her some trifling gift for children, who, 
like herself, had been made orphans by the revolutionary axe, 
but less fortunate — no succeeding prosperous circumstances 
had restored lost wealth or relieved present and pressing ne- 
cessities. She had no money in her pocket, but struck with 
his conversation, and always commisserating the unfortu- 
nate, she asked his address, promising to call on him early 
the next morning. Before her mother was up, she dressed 
herself secretly, put four Louis d'ors in her purse, and or- 
dered her maid to accompany her. When she presented the 
money, the pretended farmer, Saunier, who was a disguised 
priest, said, '* thank God the success of the wretched infi- 
dels has not been general ; when charity has not excluded 
France, Christ still has his adorers there." She told him 
that she was no. Christian, and that she did not even believe 
in a God.. " Your own heart and these Louis d'ors, Made- 
moiselle, contradict your assertion.'* He then entered into 
a long discussion about that genuine and disinterested chari- 
ty, which, without the example of our Saviour, would have 
been unknown upon earth. " Had Athens, Persepolis, and 
heathen Rome," said he, " like the Christian capitals, those 
hospitals for age and disease, those orphan-houses for de- 
serted infancy and destitute youth, those asylums for correct- 
ing vice, for encouraging virtue, and for relieving the wants 
and lessening the misery which assail mankind from the cra- 
dle to the grave ? What is become of the charitable insti- 
tutions of our own country, since ruled by infidels? our 
streets swarm with beggars, our high roads with robbers, 
our goals with criminals ; and there is hardly a house in 
France where persons have not expired from neglect, from 
desertion, from distress, or from despair ; from that selfish 
insensibility, the characteristic of infidelity, which sees with 
indiflference a brother sulfer without any attempt to succour or 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. '* 519 

console him, and a friend agonizing, without even pitying 
him. Look round you. Mademoiselle, and I am sure it 
will almost rend your very heart, to observe one generation 
descending into eternity without faith, without hope, and 
another entering the dreadful career of life, exposed to all 
its vicissitudes and calamities in this world, without any ex- 
pectation of remuneration for virtue, or punishment for vice 
in another— in an hereafter." Her eyes confessed those sen- 
timents which her heart felt, but her mouth hesitated to pro- 
nounce. Profiting by the impression, Saunier put a book 
into her hand, and desired her to read it with attention, and 
to honour him with a visit as soon and as often as she was 
at leisure. 

Her maid was not less moved than herself by what she 
heard. They read the book both with application and edifi- 
cation. For two months they continued regularly to see the 
worthy ecclesiastic at the same hour, in the same way. To 
this day Princess Louis ackuQwledges that the information 
she obtained from his conversation, the precepts of his doc- 
trine, and the conviction of the truth of the religion of her 
fore-fathers, from his arguments and example, preserved 
her from many evils, particularly from the seduction to 
which she was exposed by young Rewbel, the son of the 
Director, who, under pretence of marrying her, had free 
admittance to her private company, but whose views, she 
had reason to suspect, were not honourable. 

Even after Buonaparte's usurpation, she, by the same re- 
ligious notions, resisted and escaped the incestuous and un- 
natural attempts of this her father-in-law, who was furious 
when he heard of her conversion to Christianity. Policy, 
however, soon got the better of lust, and took advantage of 
her devotion and dutiful resignation, to marry her to his bro- 
ther Louis, whom she not only did not like, but who was 
repugnant to her on account of his debaucheries and other 
vicious propensities. Whether she afterwards was the dupe 
of her own sensibility, or became culpable, because she had 
been obedient, her scrupulous conscientiousness is evinced 
in a letter to her mother. In it she so frankly explains her 
situation, and deplores her errors, that early repentance 
makes it proba )le that her continuance upon the road of per- 
dition will be but short. 



220i I REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

*''• Compiegne^ Atigust 19?A, 1804. 

** Yes, my dearest mother and only friend, I am encom'* 
passed with everv thing that can make life not only agreeable 
but enviable. Of my sex, I am here the first by a rank I ne-? 
ver dreamt to attain, and I am hailed and complimented by 
every body,, as having no superior in the beauty of my per- 
son, or in my mental accomplisl'ii^ents. 

, *^ These gifts of fortune, of nature, are valuable, charm- 
ing, and flattering indeed, I have, however, experienced 
that they are unable to confer what constitutes the sole bles- 
sing and only worth of existence — content with one'^s selj] 
and above all^ peace and tranquility of mind. 

" How si igular are those occurrences of my life that have 
preceded and produced my present brilliant misery ! At 
eleven years of age the public executioner made me an or- 
phan, and at thirteen I had another father. From mistaken, 
ill-conceived, or criminal tenderness, he ordered me to be 
educated without belief in a Divinity. This was not easily 
effected. 1 he lessons, the prayers of my infancy, though 
the giddiness and playfulness common to youth made them 
often neglected, were never entirely forgotten or erased. I 
found I do not know what consolation, in secretly confiding 
my wishes, my griefs, my joy, in my prayers to a Supreme 
Being, to act as I thought would please him ; to enjoy an 
heavenly satisfaction when I had done right, and a torment- 
ing anxiety when I had any wrong with which to reproach 
myself ; on the other hand, an invincible horror seized me 
the instant the idea of total annihilation put me on the level 
with the brute, or insinuated to my bewildered senses, that 
my production and end were the same with the plant in our 
garden, the dog tied in our court-yard, or the insect I tram- 
pled under my feet. I often made these remarks to Madame 
Campan, because they often perplexed me. She in return, 
shewed me my father's instructions, to which she added her 
own comments, corresponding with his desires. 

" But the fashion of impiety was to me the most danger- 
pus of teachers and seducers. All other girls, my compan- 
ions, strove who should be foremost to pride themselves of 
infidelity, and throw ridicule on Christianity. They were 
always applauded — fatal applauses ! In two years I left them 
all behind me, and was saluted the most amiable atheist 
of the whole seminary. The approbation of my father, on 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



221 



his return victorious from Italj^, did not at all tend to make 
me change my opinions. 

" You know, since the unexpected light which Providence 
gave me in the precepts of my ever regretted virtuous in- 
structor Saunier, how much I changed f6r the better, in my 
behaviour towards the best of mothers, and how much eve- 
ry good person approved that decency of gait, of language, 
which succeeded my presumptuous and indecorous boldness. 
This, the only time of my life I was truly happy, was short, 
too short. 

'* After my father-in-law had been made a First Consul, 
and continued those unnatural insinuations I dreaded and 
detested, the pain it caused me to avoid giving offence, and to 
conceal my disgust and contempt, made me agitated when 
alone, and uncomfortable when in company. You know that 
he was insupportable to me from the day I heard him use such 
shocking language to you. My innocent caresses, which he 
took for affectionate sentiments, were only the consequence 
of a duty my obedience to my mother's commands imposed 
on me. But when he had from jealousy so cruelly exiled 
my only lover, the worthy choice of my heart, the dearest 

De S , when he murdered De S 's friend, Frotte, 

I abhorred him. 

" You since know the daily combats of my mind, and that 
they would long ago overcome my strength, had not the hope 
relieved me, that my power over a barbarian might prevent 
the commission of more crimes. You know also, how lit- 
tle he has kept that promise (which bound me for life to a 
husband I must despise) of sparing all Roya:!ists ; sacred 
shades of D'Enghien, Pichegru, and George, revenge on 
your assassin the pangs of your friend, caused by your mur- 
der. 

*•'• I m.any times v/ished that my principles of religion, of 
morality, were as easily reconciled v,nth my conduct as your's, 
dear mamma. I should not now deplore the pollution of my 
nuptial bed by intruders ; of not having resolution enough 
to resist temptations I condemn as culpable ; of having per- 
mitted my passions to govern my reason, and my senses to 
silence my duty, aiid for some short and temporary enjoy- 
ments, endure the perpetual reproaches of a guilty conscience. 
i hese would be insupportable to me, were my husband's be- 
iiaviour to me kind, and if, in some manner, his repeated in- 



ass REVOLUTIONARY jPLUTAHCH. 

fidelities did not extenuate my adultery. For one of my 
lovers, he has twenty mistresses. The indelicacy of his in- 
trigues, of his amours, goes beyond what you can imagine. 
The embraces of the common harlots of the camp are often 
as acceptable to him as those of the wives of his aids-de- 
camp, and always preferable to mine. Is it not outrageous ! 
Is it not provoking ! If your walks are sown with thorns, 
you may guess that mine are not strewed with roses. 

" Believe me, my sole friend, that the young conscripts 
are nothing to me. Had I a husband I could love, or only 
esteem, I should always have remained pure and irreproach- 
able. I am, however, determined, if I survive my approach- 
ing accouchement, to dismiss for ever, even those consolers 
you think so necessary to my comfort. This is a vow I have 
this morning made before the altar, and God will enable me 
to perform it. As to Louis's jealousy, I fear it is less than 
I suffer from his negligence." 

The Princess had frequent audiences of the Pope during 
the winter of 1804, and his Holiness bestowed on her indul- 
gencies in abundance. Her life has since been very retired, 
and as she has perfectly recovered from her accouchement, it 
is supposed that her vow has not been forgotten. 

The yearly allowance of the Princess Louis amounts to 
four millions of livres ; her jewels, plate, china, and pic- 
tures, are valued at twelve millions ; a bishop is her almo- 
ner, and two grand vicars her chaplains ; Madame Deviry 
is her lady in waiting, and Madame Boubers ; Madame 
Villeneuve, Madame MoUien, and Madame Lery, arc her 
maids of honour ; Mr. Darjuson is her first chamberlain, 
and Colonel Caulincourt her master of the horse ; Mr. Tuy- 
got her equerry ; Desprez her secretary ; Dalichoux Sene- 
gra her intendant ; Robert Villars her librarian ; Raguideau 
her notary ; Le Roux her physician ; Assaliny her siirgeon, 
and Dufau her apothecary ; besides these, sixty-six other 
persons are attached to her household. 

Her Imperial Highness has been delivered of two sons. 
Napoleone Charles, born on the 18th of Vendemaire, an. 
xi. or 10th October, 1802 ; and Napoleone Louis, born on 
the 19th Vendemaire, an .xiii. or 11th October, 1804. 



223 



MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE, 



In a work of this nature^ written and published in Eng- 
hndwith a vitw to vilify the family of Buonaparte ^ it could 
not be expected that correct Jnfcr7nation was the object tf 
the author^ but that every character directly or indirectly in" 
troduced to answer his pmpQse should be represented tvithout 
regard to truth ^or decency. It may be properly asked where 
was the necessity for the unjust and illiberal refections here 
cast on the President^ and the national character of mcr 
citizens ? With respect to Mr, Patterson^ and the share he 
had in effecting the marriage of his daughter ^ the most su- 
perficial acquaintance with the laws of this country would 
evince the impossibility of his acti7ig the part attributed t(? 
him. Parents have no authority whatsoever over their chil- 
dren in what relates to marriage^ in this they are left a per- 
fect freedom of choice. But Mr. Patterson^ so far Jrom. 
^Tging his daughter to the uniony or being actuated by the 
unworthy motives with which he is charged^ foreseeing the 
evils of which it must be productive advised strongly against 
it, and did every thing in his poiver to prevent the match ; 
it was therefore an act of the parties themselves^ suggested 
by mutual inclination and founded on 7nutual attachment. It 
is due to the character of Mr, Jerome Buonaparte to observe^ 
that during a residence of nearly two years in Baltimore^ be- 
fore and after his marriage^ that no man could have conducted 
himself more correctly ^ or with more propriety, and that ht 
endeared himself to everyone rvho knew him by his amiaile 
man?iers and engaging disposition. 

The magistrates of the ancient republics of Athens, Spar- 
ta and Rome, would have degraded, disgraced, banished> 
or put to death, a citizen who permitted his children to 
marry into a family either of tyrants or of slaves ; either 
ot foreign princes, (/r of ibreign upstarts. But his Excel- 
lency My. President Jcfter^on is no nxre r.n Arift.dLs, a 



224r REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Lycurgus, or a Cato, than Citizen Patterson is a Socrates^ 
or a Brutus. In the free commonwealth of the United 
States of America, such is the general liberality and hospi- 
tality, that had a Spartan citizen, with his contempt of 
riches and stern principles of freedom, presented himself 
there, if he had refused to sell himself for a slave, he would 
have perished from >vant like a wretch ; he would have 
found no choice between bondage and death. 

On the other hand, the example of Monsieur Jerome 
Buonaparte, proves the unambitious disinterestedness of 
American citizens, and that any foreign adventurer, let his 
relatives be ever so vile or ever so wicked ; let them owe 
their elevation to the most enormous crimes, their power 
to the basest treachery, and their wealth to the most infa- 
mous plunder ; let himself be an accomplice of their guilt, 
provided he has a prospect of sharing in the spoils, he is 
certain of being adopted into the families even of those 
called the most respectable citizens. The greedy trader 
will heap upon him hoarded treasures, renowned beauty 
bestow her hand, austere virtue her caresses, and staunch 
republicans their commendations, their flattery — their cring- 
ing. 

On a young person of Miss Patterson's age and repub- 
lican education, love must generally exclude all other con- 
siderations. The ambition of the females of a common- 
wealth of equality, must chiefly confine itself to obtaining 
for husband's the most handsome or the richest among their 
tellow-citizens. The shameful cupidity, and foolish am- 
bition of her parents, therefore, no doubt, dictated her 
unbecoming marriage with a low Corsican. To suppose 
it otherwise, would be a libel on her hearty on her sense, 
and on her judg}ne7it» She was the wife of Monsieur Je- 
rome after an acquaintance of some few weeks only. VVas 
he a little more hairv, the yellow and diminitive figure or 
Monsieur Jerome would hardly improve the ugliest mon- 
key capering in the forests either of the western or eastern 
world. Monsieur Jerome is ill-bred as well as uninformed ; 
possessing neither natural cr acquired parts to recommend 
him. Parental disposition alone could have united the beau- 
tiful and accomplished Miss Patterson with such an igno- 
rant, mean, vicious, and corrupted personage. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



S25 



- What could give Mr. and Mrs. Patterson the hope of a 
fraternity with the Buonapartes? Then' worth, their ere- 
'Jit. These may, perhaps, he well known upon the ex- 
changes of America, but Napoleone despises and detests 
merchants. Mr. Patterson has hitherto no military achieve- 
ments, no revolutionary crimes, to recommend him, and 
he is too honest a man, to be transformed hereafter, either 
into a bravo or an accomplice of the Corsican usurper. 
The domestic virtues of Mrs. Patterson ? 'I'hese are the 
most pointed epigrams on the hereditary vices of the female 
Buonapartes. They must therefore resign themselves to 
see their pleasing scheme miscarry, of being the parents 
of a revolutionary Imperial Princess. 

. In the creation of Imperial Highnesses in May 1804, 
Monsieur Jerome was excluded ; and in the subsequenfi 
dignities and distinctions thrown in such a scandalous 
profusion, on every person related to the upstart tyrant, no 
mention is made of this his younger brother, llis name 
is not found even upon the list of those French banditti 
forming a Legion of Honour. He is only a captain of a, 
frigate, without property and without talents, and will 
remain in these narrow circumstances, in that humble sta- 
tion, until he renounces a match he was not of age to con- 
clude. Is it to be supposed that the feelings of Jerome 
will oppose such a dishonourable, though not unlawful 
act ? Will his stoicism prefer obscurity and penury to rank 
and riches? To judge of his present sensibility from his 
past transactions, he is as unfeeling as a brute; and to de- 
termine his firmness, constancy, and inconsistency, from 
those of the other members of the Buonaparte family, he 
must regard all ties of honour and of honesty merely as 
steps to advancement and gratification of passions, and dis- 
regard them the instant they cease to be such, whenever 
they do not promote or only oppose his interest. Thus* 
absurd ambition, as well as all other unbecoming passions, 
carries v/ith it its own chastisement. The disappointment 
of the Pattersons is certain, while their design of grandeur 
and splendour is problematical,if not improbable. Should 
also their good and sacrificed daughter sutler from affec- 
tion, love, or defeated confidence, her misfortunes must bo 
to them tormenting and unrelenting reproache&. 

B d 



% 



2^26 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

The only event that coulc? make Monsieur Jerome con- 
tinue the husband of Miss Patterson, is of such a nature, 
that had it occurred in 1802, her parents would never have 
permitted her to bestow her hand on him. Was Provi- 
dence in itsjustice, to precipitate the sanguinary Napoleone 
from the blood-stained throne which he so treacherously 
seized, and so illegally occupies, and let the punishment 
due to his enormities overtake him in this world, Jerome 
would then certainly be fortunate, to seek in America a 
rpfuge from the proscription of his criminal relatives in 
Europe. 

When, in the beginning of January 1805, the Pope was 
busy at Paris, in marrying again all the Buonapartes, who 
had previously only been coupled according to the impious 
code of the Republic, and the rites of atheism, he is said 
also to have signed a bull dissolving the marriage of Je- 
rome, as contracted by a minor, against the consent of his 
relations, and contrary to the canon laws, with an heretic. 
As Jerome did not set sail from America before the April 
following:, it cannot be doubted but that he was acquainted 
with this his family arrarigemevt^ and that he left his wife 
in the Tagus, with an intent never to see her again without 
the consent of his brother Napoleone. That this was his 
determination, his supplications before the Imperial throne 
when at Genoa, shortly afterwards, and when they were 
unavailing, his acceptance of the inferior command of a 
frigate, as a penance for past offences and an indication of 
future amendment, clearly evince. He shewed that he 
was determined, at any rate, to merit indulgencies of the 
Pope, and to obtam indemnities from the mock Emperor, 
his sovereign and his master. 

Nothing has, however, happened, or can happen in this 
business, or rather intrigue, which the Pattersons should 
not have prepared themselves to expect, both from the so 
well known outrageously vain character of Napoleone, and 
from the letters intercepted by British cruizers, addressed 
by the usurper's minister of the marine department, to 
Monsieur Jerome himself, as well as to his political Trans- 
Atlantic emissary, Pichon. 

The following is an official and authentic copy of the 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY, 257 

minister of the marine, Decre's letter to his friend Mon- 
sieur Jerome Buonaparte. 

" PariSy SOth Germinal, year 12 {April 18, 1804.) 

*' I have just been fulfilling, my dear Jerome, a rigorous 
duty imposed upon me by the First Consul; that of for- 
bidding the Citizen Pichon to supply you with money, and 
prescribing to him to prohibit all the captains of French 
vessels from receiving on board the young person to whom 
you have attached yourself; it* being the intention of the 
First Consul, that she shall on no pretext whatever come 
into France; and should she happen to present herself, that 
she shall not be received, but be re-embarked for the Unit- 
ed States without delay. 

" Such, my- dear Jerome, are the orders which I have 
been obliged literally to transmit, and which have been 
given me, and repeated after the interval of a month, with 
such a solemn severity, as neither allowed me to with- 
hold them altogether, nor to soften them in the slightest 
degree. 

" After the discharge of this severe duty, I cannot, my 
dear Jerome, deny myself the pleasure of lengthening my 
letter in a way which the attachment I feel for you will 
warrant, and our military association entitle me to. If I 
loved you less, if the sentiments with which you have in- 
spired me did not so perfectly accord with those which I 
owe to your family ; if there were not between you and 
me a sort of companionship in arms, and of intmiacy which 
I delight in keeping up, 1 would confine myself to the 
dispatching of the orders which I have received, and to an 
accurate official correspondence ; the result of which would 
give me very little uneasiness. Instead of this, I am going 
to chat witli you at a great rate, and without knowing be- 
forehand what I am about to say ; of one thing I am cer- 
tain, I shall tell you nothing of which I am not well per- 
suaded. 

" War is carrying on, and you are quiet and peaceable 
at 1500 leagues from the theatre on which you ought to 
uct a great part. If unfortunately you come not back in 



^$S REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

ibe first French frigate which returns to Europe, and I 
have already given you that order by C — tds, an order 
which I repeat to you by the ConsuTs command, in the 
most formal manner: if, I say, you shall not return to 
France till after the peace, what dignity will accompany 
your return ? How will men recognize in you the brother 
of the regulator of Europe? In ^\hat temper of mind will 
yqu find that brother, v;ho, eager after glory, will see you 
destitute even of that of having encountered dangers; 
and who, convinced that all France v;ould shed its blood 
for him, would only see in you, a man without energy, 
yielding to etfemintite passions, and having not a single 
leaf to add to the heaps of laurels with which he invests 
his name and our standards. 

" O ! Jerome, this idea alone should determine you to 
return with all expedition amongst us. The sotind of 
arms is heard in every quarter, and of the preparations for 
the noblest enterprise. You are inquired for, and I vexed 
that I should be at a loss what answer to give to those who 
ask where you are — declare that you are just at hand ; 
give me not the lie, I beseech you. 

** Your brother Joseph, father of a family that he adores, 
possessed of a fortune ])roportioned to his rank, invested 
with the highest civil honoursof the state, known through- 
out Europe for his sagacity, and his diplomatic labours, 
wishes to add to so much glory, that of sharing with the 
Consul the dangers of war, and has just got one of the 
rce^iments that are about to embark. Louis, known by his 
military services, a general of division, is desirous of adding 
to that glory, that of displaying talents for civil arrange- 
ments; he iiasjust entered into the Council of State — the 
section of legislation. 

" Lucien, it is true, has just quitted France, and has ex- 
iled himself to Rome, m consequence of a marriage repug- 
Ijant to the views of the Fir^t Consul ; but Lucien is known 
by the services he has rendered, by his genius, by his ta- 
lents, by the dignity of a senator. He is possessed of a 
jiijreat and iudependant fortune; but notwitlistanding the 
ccnnections (disavowed by his brother J which he has cc: 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 22D 

traded, have been found, incompatible with his abode in 
France, 

" What has taken place in your family, points out to 
you sufficiently what the First Consul expects of you, and 
his inflexibility concerning what you shall do in opposi- 
tion to his views. Sole architect of the glory of which he 
has attained the summit, he acknowledges no family but 
the French people, and in proportion as he exalts his bro- 
thers, who press around him, so have I seen him show cold- 
ness, and even aversion, to tjiose of his own blood, who 
push not forward in the career which his genius traces out 
for them. Whatever is foreign to the accomplishment of 
his great designs, seems to him treason against the high 
destiny ! And believe me, for I know your brother better 
than you know him yourself, if you should persist in keep- 
ing yourself at a distance from him, he would get angry at 
it at first, and would conclude by entirely forgetting you; 
and heaven knows what regrets your obscurity would lay 
up in store for you. Scarce can a more brilliant career be 
opened to a man of your age. Shut it not up yourself. 
The union which you have formed, has deeply affected 
him. While I, thought he, am doing every thing for glory, 
for my own, for that of my name, for the happiness of the 
people that have put their fate into my hands, by whom 
may I hope to be seconded, if not by my brothers? and the 
youngest among them forms an inconsiderate connection, 
on which he has not even asked my opinion. He has dis- 
posed of himself as a private individual ; it is therefore 
cis a private individual he wishes me to consider him. 
What claim does he show to my benefactions? — None; 
for instead of being useful to me, he takes the route dia- 
metrically opposite to what I wish him to follow. In vain 
^vailing myself of the freedom which the First Consul 
permits in domestic privacy, did I wish to make the 
voice of natural affection be heard; 1 became sensible, 
from his conversation, that he neither felt, nor was liable 
to feel, any j)liancy of that kind. 

" / will receive Jerome, if, leaving in America the youn^ 
person in question^ he shall come hither to associate himself 
io my fortune. Should he bring her along with hitn, she 
.'hall not put afoot on the territory of France, and you muU 



130 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

answer to me for this, by the orders wh'ch you are bound to 
give to prevent her landing. If he comes alone, I shall 
ne^er recall the error of a moment, and the fault of j^outh. 
Faithful services, and the conduct which he owes to him- 
self, and to his name, will regain him all ray kindness ; 
such, my dear Jerome, are nearly the words of the First 
Consul. Bethink yourself, my friend, that he is only your 
brother, and that as I have already told you, a brother feels 
not the yielding condescension of a father, who identifies 
himself in some measure with his son — Consider that you 
have as yet done nothing for him, and that in order to ob- 
tain the advantage attached to the honour of being connect- 
ed v^ith him, you have not a moment to lose for deserving 
them. For it is his character, that merit and services ren- 
dered, or to be rendered, are the only things on which he 
sets a real and solid value. 

*' In truth, I am frightened at the regrets you are pre- 
paring for yourself, and the person with whom you have 
connected yourself, should you go to the length of opposing 
the views of your brother; your passions will pass away, 
and you will reproach yourself with the injury which you 
have done yourself. Perhaps you will accuse, even involun- 
tarily, the young person who will have been the occasion of 
it. Listen to reason, and she will tell you, that at any rate 
3^ou have committed the fault of failing in respect for your 
brother, and for a brother fed for a length of time with the 
love and veneration of all France, and with the respect of 
Europe. You will be sensible how happy it is for you, 
that you are able, by returning to France, to obtain the 
pardon of this fault; that it would be inconsistent with 
your personal dignity to carry thith^rr a woman who would 
be exposed to the mortification of not being received. I 
know not whether you can hope to overcome your bro- 
ther's unfavourable dispositions towards her; and, to deal 
frankly with you — I see no probability of such a thing ; 
but if there be any means of obtaining it, it must be by 
your presence — by your compliance with his views, by 
proofs of your devoted attachment to him, you can bring 
it about. You are so young, that if you unhappily let 
slip the opportunity of placing yourself about the Consul, 
you Will have many years of regret steal upon you. The 
obscurity to which you would thus condemn yourself 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 231 

would be long; and long and bitter the comparison be- 
tween the lot you had chosen for j'ourself, and that which 
once awaited you. Without distinction, fame, or evea 
fortune, how could you bear the weight of the name with 
■which you are honoured ? To you, a stranger to the glory 
attached to it, it would become an insupportable burthen. 
I repeat it for the last time, my dear Jerome, come hither, 
come hither by the first French frigate whidi shall sail 
from the United States, and you w'ill meet with such a 
reception as ycu could desire; but I regret that you know 
not the Consul sutliciently, because you would then be 
persuaded that you cannot regain his good will but by this 
expedient, and his good will is essential to your happiness 
and your glory. I conclude with the expression of the 
most sincere attachment, which I shall never cease to re- 
tain ; happy, if I have been able to influence your deter- 
mination in the wa}^ I could wish, more happy still, if my 
letter was unnecessary for that purpose. A thousand good 
wishes. 

(Signed) *' Decres." 

Paris, 1st Floreal, year 12, April 19, 1S04. 

Not unnecessarily to swell the volume, another letter from 
the same minister to the French charge d'affaires in Ame- 
rica, Pichon, is left out, as being nearly a repetition of the 
above. 

A French periodical paper, published on this subject 
some other curious particulars, under the head of 

" IMPERIAL FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE. 

(From Les Nouvelles a la Main.. Vendcmaire, an xiii. or Octo* 
ber, 1804, No. 4. p. 3, et seq.) 

" British cruizers on the coast of America have inter- 
cepted a parcel containing original, confidential, and offi- 
cial letters from Napoleone Buonaparte to his brother Je- 
rome, and from Talleyrand to the French agents in Ame- 
rica. The names under some of these letters are signed 
at full length, others only wiih initials. Among the lat- 
ter is one signed J. B. supposed Joseph Buonaparte, and 



2S2 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Jknotlier L. B. supposed Letitia Buonaparte, addressed to 
Monsieur Jerome. 

" In the letter from Napoleone, Jerome is severely re- 
proached for his degrading marriage in a family of la ca- 
naille marchande, or of the mercantile rabble; ordered im- 
mediately to renounce his wife, and embark for France, 
"where honours, r2iuk, and riches await him, if obedient; 
whilst, on the contrary, if refractory, poverty and obscu-^ 
rity are to be his only lot, as a Se7iatus Consultus which, 
were he in France, would proclaim him an Imperial High- 
ness, shall otherwise prevent him and his posterity for ever 
from using and disIio7iouring the great name of Buona- 
parte. The sword of the Grand Admiral, intended for 
him, shall then be disposed of to distant, though more 
worthy relatives. 

** Joseph's letter to Jerome is merely a copy of Napo- 
leone*s. Though he presses Jerome to obey the Emperor's 
commands, he does it with so bad a grace, as if he seemed 
apprehensive that the arrival of a younger brother in 
France, would diminish his own ambitious views or avari- 
cious expectations. Two-thirds of the letter are said to 
express, in the strongest terms, the terrible anger, and the 
terrible effects, of the terrible Napoleone's displeasure, 
which te(\mxe years of good conduct in Jerome, before the 
Emperor's/ra/erwa/ aft'ection can be restored. 

*' The letter of Madame Buonaparte, the mother, to her 
Jerome, is full of Catholic sentiments. As a true Christian 
of the Catholic church, she fears as much the damnation 
of her son in the next world, as his disgrace in this, for 
having married into a family of heretics, and united him- 
self to a woman educated in the same principles of eternal 
perdition as her parents. She exhorts her son not to go to 
France, but to join her in Italy, where she will endeavour 
to make his and Lucien's peace at the same time with his 
Imperial brother. She hints that his Holiness the Pope has 
shown no objection to pronounce his marriage with an he- 
retic void, and that she has fixed upon a young Roman 
Princess of the Colonna family as his future wife, whose 
religion is as pure as her birth is illustrious. To console 
the iemporarj) Madame Jerome, she offers to settle upoa 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



233 



her an annuity of six thousand livres (250/.) if she will be- 
come a Roman Catholic, and retire into some Spanish or 
Italian convent. 



" The Frencli agents in America are informed by Ta!-. 
leyrand, tluit the Emperor's command is, that the\- shall 
try all means in their power to persuade Jerome to take 
his passage immediately for Europe, and if without suc- 
cess, stop the Imperial allowance; entice him on board, 
and even use secret violence in forcing him to embark with- 
out his pretended v,'ife, to remove whom out of the way, 
the agents have full authority* to employ whatever secret 
means they think necessary. The principal agent is or- 
dered to repeat to the President Jeiferson, the Emperor's 
displeasure for not having interfered with regard to his 
brother's match, w-hich, if lawful according to the laws of 
America, is illegal according to the laws of France: to 
these ah?}c Frenchrnen are subjected, icherever they reside. 
He is to be requested tacitly to permit those measures of 
vigour, which the family honioiir of the Buonapartes re- 
quires on this occasion, and to equip an American frigate 
to carry Jerome, v/ithout his incumbrance, to France at 
the expence of the Emperor, who in return will ensure his 
re-election as President, and even, upon certain condition^;, 
a presidency for life over the American States. General 
Turrean (of terrorist memory), whom the Emperor hss 
appointed his representative in America, will inform the 
President of his Majesty's demands and intents. This ge- 
neral ambassador has instructions to support him, and eveii 
to head any party that shall take up arms against the 
Angloman federalists, who are to be exterininated, should 
the}' dare to oppose his re-election. Should his f'lture 
conduct be approved of, Turreau will let Mr. Jefferson 
more into the secret views of his Imperial Majesty with 
regard to Spain and her colonies, which, when Em-ope is 
pacified, may easily be partitioned between the subjects of 
the President and those of the Emperor." 

** These are the principal contents of the intercepted 

IMPERIAL FAMILY CORR ESPONDENC E, of which W^C haVC 

obtained copies from our correspondent at Baltitnore : 
there, as we 1 as every where else in America, they are cir- 
culated by English emissaries, enemies to the quiet and 

E e 



234 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

glory of our 27/?(5inoM^, revolutionary, Corsican sans-culotte 
Dynasty; which with so much modesty, and so many vir- 
tues, has put the rank, the throne, the palaces, and the 
property of the French Bourbons in requisition for them- 
selves. 

" When Monsieur Jerome is safely arrived in France, 
and Madame Jerome is safely removed to America, we shall 
publish a ])anegyric on the former, and a funeral sennon 
on the latter." 

The inveteracy of the Emperor against the premature 
marriage of Jerome, is besides evident, from the strict or- 
der he gave his minister at Lisbon, to prevent the landing 
of Madame Jerome in that neutral kingdom, and the civil 
departure she was forced to take from the allied Batavian 
Commonwealth: an indelicate insult, which the becom- 
ingly proud republicans of old would have considered as 
an act of premeditated hostility, had it been offered to one 
of their feliow-citizens. But it may be repeated again, 
that the Americans are modern republicans, more ready to 
worship Plutusthan to draw their swords in the service of 
Mars. Their political consciences are not so nice or scru- 
pulous as those of the republicans of antiquity. They 
would sell and dispose of all the Helens, all the Venuses 
in the world, with the same indifference as any other com- 
modity, provided the bargain was profitable. 

Another occurrence has not lessened the wrath of Ma- 
dame Jerome's barbarous brother-in-law, Napoleone. Her 
husband, according to report, in announcing his arrival in 
Europe with the young person his wife, had also stated, 
that although she had the misfortune of being under the 
Emperor's ban, his enemies were her's. She would ex- 
pect with submission his gracious directions in neutral 
Embden, where she was friendless, instead of landing in 
hostile England, where her relatives were many, and the 
friends of her parents numerous. His revolutionary Ma- 
jesty had hardly finished the reading of this letter, when 
the public prints informed him that Madame Jerome was 
quietly laivded opposite to where his Army of England 
bravely, but quietly encamped. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 233 

As be, however, at the same time was shewn translati- 
ons of some English prints, mentioning the distinguished 
reception she had met with at Dover ; that an honourable 
gentleman had performed the part of his Imperial Ma- 
jesty's grand master of the ceremonies, and handed heron 
shore ; that generals, colonels, and mayors had waited on 
her; that their wives had complimented her ; that her 
anti-chambers had been crowded with fashionable ama- 
teurs, and her hotel surrounded with greeting John Bulls; 
his fury was somewhat softened, and his rage less violent 
than usual, particuiarl}^ when honest Talleyrand, the Em-i 
peror's grand sycophant of honour, had addressed him 
thus : " Sire! and my most gracious Sovereign, Emperor, 
and King! notwithstanding the ungenerous endeavours of 
the British Government to cloud your Majesty's glory, to 
diminish the inestimable value of your Majesty's great 
actions, to calumniate your Majesty's patriotism, disinter- 
estedness, and liberality, and to excite the people of Great 
Britain against your Majesty*s sacred person. Englishmen 
of all classes strive who shall be foremost to bow to a lady, 
who had no other claims to their veneration, than that of 
having usurped the brilliant name of Buonaparte. Sons 
of peers cringe to touch her hand ; superior and confiden- 
tial officers of his Bri tan ic Majesty, with their wives, emu- 
late to be admitted and remarked in her drawing-room ; 
and his subjects of every rank are anxious to pay their de- 
voirs to the soi-disant Madame Jerome Buonaparte, who, 
had she landed as Miss Patterson, would not only have 
been unnoticed, but perhaps insulted. From this voluntary 
and flattering behaviour, your Imperial and Royal Ma- 
jesty may conclude what a reception he would have ob- 
tained, had he graciously condescended to land in the Bri- 
tish Islands. Sire ! some little more patience, and the So- 
vereign who has lately been consecrated Rex ItalicuSj will 
soon be saluted, nay hailed. Rex Britannicus T* 

Whether this speech of Talleyrand is fabricated or real, 
whether it is composed as a conjpliment to Buonaparte, or 
as a censure on the conduct of certain British subjects, who 
suffered their curiosity or politeness to get the better of 
their duty and policy, it is equally just, proper, and point- 
ed. What a disgrace to the character of a free, dutiful, 
and loyal nation, to have published accounts of persons of 



^3G REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

rank and eminence dancing attendance on a Madame Je- 
rome (the wife of a pett}^ insignificant rebel and adventur- 
er, brother of an usurper, tyrant, and assassin, the sworn 
enemy of their country), who, as Talleyrand truly observ- 
ed, would scarcely have been regarded or spoken to, had 
she arrived here as Miss Patterson. Her misfortune of 
having accepted for a husband Jerome Buonaparte, cer- 
tainly deserves compassion and pity, but cannot be allevi- 
ated by an unexpected and undeserved attention and trou- 
blesome bustle. As to her sex, it would have been respect- 
ed the same, less pompously indeed, but perhaps more 
sincerely, by all true Britons, had she set her feet upon 
British ground as the unmarried daughter of an American 
trader, instead of the disappointed and deserted wife of a 
revolutionary Imperial Highness in petto. Our laws, our 
manners, cur civilization, and our gallantry, protect it, 
without all the impolitic and ridiculous show and parade 
witnessed at Dover, and transmitted thence to fill the 
columns of London newspapers, or to announce to conti- 
nental nations our rapid advancement towards a degrada- 
tion which we have so often censured in them, when pros- 
trating themselves before a Napoieone, Joseph, Lucien,or 
Louis Buonaparte, before a revolutionary Emperor, or be- 
fore a revolutionary Empress. In what light have the 
Emperors of Germany and Russia considered such an hu- 
miliating infatuation! Have they not reason' to believe 
that the conclusions drawn by Talleyrand, though exag- 
gerated, may not be improbable? States that know nothing 
of our loyalty, resources, and public spirit, but from the 
libels in the AjGnhuer, may they not suppose that our ex- 
travagant acts of good breeding are the dictates of fear, 
and that our necks are stretched out ready to receive the 
Corsican yoke? Will not the loyal and disinterested cabi- 
net of Berlin rejoice at such progression towards Corsican 
fraternity? Britons are but little aware of the hateful ef- 
fects such ridiculous scenes here, produce on the still inde- 
pendant continental nations. 

Had Madame Jerome, like a Madame Tallien, shewn 
herself bold, daring, vain, and presumptuous, instead of 
being modest and amiable, she would have been visited by 
our great folks, invited by our fashionables, followed by 
crowds in her walks^ gaped at in churches^ stared at in 



^ 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



237 



theatres, and, finally, after being caressed by our first peo- 
ple, envied by her equals of the niiddle classes, and hooted 
and abused by the rabble. Her prudence and good sense 
in avoiding publicity, are as praiseworthy as her marriage 
is deplorable. All persons who have enjoyed the pleasure 
of her company, are unanimous in their admiration of the 
charms of her person, as well as of the ornaments of hef 
mind. 



i 









# 



* 



m 



238 



HER IMPERIAL IIIGHJJESS 

ELIZA BUONAPARTE, 

SOVEREIGN PRINCESS OFPIOMBINO, ttUas 
MADAME BACHIOCCHI. 



" If any farmer wants an able housewife, any cattle- 
keeper a good dairy-maid, any inn-keeper an attentive and 
clean bur or chamber-maid, or any bleacher an expert 
?r^ laundress, my Eliza," said Madame Buonaparte the mo- 
;- ther, " is a valuable matcl). She will keep at home for 

months, never going out but to hear mass or to make her 
confession, continualh- looking after the house, watching, 
instructinsj, and, when necessary, scolding the servants. 
She can milk the cows or goats to perfection, churn butter, 
to a nicety, discover cows lost in the woods, or runaway 
goats capering upon the mountains. She can^^bake bread, 
brew beer, feed pigs, and nurse lambs or kids. She is a 
competent judge of all sorts of good winesf spirits, and 
liquors; can mix negus, punch, or syllabubs, lemonade, 
colfee, or chocolate ; can make feather or stra^^j^ds; can 
sweep to perfection sitting and bed-rooms, and^f splash- 
ing and mangling, spare (he washing of sheets and curtains 
for years. By a method her own, and invented' t?y herself, 
she hangs up, lays down, or spreads out her linen in such 
a systematic manner, that not a drop of rain, or a ray of 
the sun, is lost to whiten or dry them. For citizens of such 
description, of such occupation,' repeated Mother Buona- 
parte, " my Eliza is an inestimable treasure." 

This eldest sister of the First Consul married in 1788, a 
countryman of her's, BLichiocchi, who, with a capital of 
twelve thousand livres (500/. sterling), had established a 
cotton manufactory at Basle in Switzerland. The match 
was at that period regarded ii^her country as a brilliant 
one for the petty and poor Buonaparte family. Before her 
marriage, she had done all the drudgery of a dairy-maid 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 239 

on the small farm rented by her parents near Ajaccio, in 
Corsica. 

Thus spoke the simple, plain, and poor Letitia Buona- 
parte, when cultivating a small farm near Ajaccio in Cor- 
sica; when following the plough, or guarding flocks of 
goats; when surrounded with nine ragged or naked children, 
calling, and often calling in vain, for bread. Notwithstand- 
ing her faith in the predictions of gypsies, and in the pre- 
science of her own dreams, she then little supposed that 
thrones, grandeur, and wealth were in store for those brats, 
whom she expected to vegetabe in penury, meanness, and 
obscurity ; whom she would have thought rich, if not ex- 
periencing immediate want, and exalted, if necessity or 
misery did not force them to become troublesome to the 
parish ; to augment the numbers of needy vagabonds beg- 
ging on the highways, or the sturdy, starving beggars in- 
festing and asking for alms in the streets of cities and 
towns. 

A countryman of her Imperial Highness Princess Eliza, 
considered affluent, because he possessed property to the 
amount of twelve thousand livres (500/.), was struck with 
the boasts of Mother Buonaparte, of this her daughter's 
domestic qualities, which her friends in charity circulated 
all over the island of Corsica. He therefore hired a jack- 
ass to go to Ajaccio, where he surprised her Imperial High- 
ness occujiEd in gelding pigs. As he wanted a wife of 
all work,^nis did not frighten or dishearten him. With- 
out being captivated by a beauty, that, if it ever had exist- 
ed, had not been improved by the scorching rays of a burn- 
ing climate, he was pleased with her sensible conversation 
and rustic accomplishments. For him to demand and ob- 
tain the hand of a virgin, already the mother of a child 
of many fathers, was the same. Their nuptials were cele- 
brated with a pomp that made Mother Buonaparte weep 
for joy, and all the other raggamuffinsof Ajaccio envy her 
felicity. 

The adventures of Princess Eliza's husband. Citizen Fe- 
lix Bachiocchi, his present Serene Highness, Sovereign 
Prince of Piombino, were no less extraordinary than her 
Qwn qualities were wonderful. The son of a shoe-black 



•^ 



540 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

&t Bastia, or at least of the wife of a shoe-black (whose 
very frequent visits to a neighbouring convent of Recollets 
scandalized the devotees, and furnished matter for the chat 
of gossips), he was gratuitously brought up by one of the 
friars, until, when about twelve years of age, he eloped, 
and engaged himself as a drummer in the regiment of 
Royal Italien. Destined, no doubt, to make a noise in a 
higher sphere, he was in some few months tired of the 
military service, and deserted into Switzerland. After four 
weeks' wanderings, during which he subsisted by begging 
and pilfering, he was received into a coffee-house at Basle, 
in the capacity of a waiter, and marqueur, or marker at a 
billiard table. Being soon expert in playing, he w^on con- 
siderable sums and bets, particularly from English travel- 
lers, who then visited the Swiss Cantons. Within six 
years he had money enough to set up a manufacturer of 
chocolate. In that situation he married the daughter of a 
cotton manufacturer, who took him into partnership, which, 
however, the death of his wife shortly dissolved. When 
he became the husband of Princess Eliza Buonaparte, he 
was in business for himself. As from compassion he be- 
haved very generously. towards the distressed relatives of 
his wife, he had nearly ruined himself, when the plunder 
of Italy enriched the sans-culotte Napoleone Buonaparte. 
He was then indeed relieved of a part of the incumbrance 
which he had supported ; but until Xapolcone had usurp- 
ed the Consulate, he was not indemnijied for his liberality, 
or paid his advances. Even then a great olJfction was 
harboured in the Consular bosom against him. "He had no 
crimes with which to reproach himself; his hands were 
neither polluted by pillage, nor stained with blood; hi.» 
quiet submission, and his wife's patient assiduities about 
her powerful brother, made him hov/ever, at last, m 1803, 
within twelve month, a Colonel, a General, and a Senator; 
in 1S04 a Serene Highness, and in 1805 the Sovereign 
Prince of Piombino, a petty principality on the borders of 
Tuscany, which Napoleone seized and bestowed on this his 
awkward brother-in-law, that he might no longer with his 
presence disgrace, at Paris, the Imperial reviews, levees, 
drawing-rooms, and circles. 

Mr. Bachiocchi is a good honest man, more fit to head 
the mechanics of a manufactory than to shine in the revo- 






THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 241 

lutionary manufactory governed by Napoleone Buona- 
parte; and as he has hitherto committed no crime to ac- 
quire celebrity, he is despised by all the Buonapartes, even 
his own wife not excepted ; and it surprises all France, that 
a dose of the same preparation which made Lucien in 
1800 a widower, has not before now made Madame Bac- 
liiocchi a widow and a princess. 

Madame Bachiocchi's character bears great resemblance 
to that of her mother; she is both superstitious and de- 
vout ; both licentious and religious ; she. intrigues and con- 
fesses, wears the hair of her loVers, and the relics of saints ; 
she kneels before the holy picture of St. Francis, and ogles 
the profane portrait of her lover on her bosom ; all her ap- 
pointments are in churches, ^vhere, in adoring her Creator, 
she gazes and smiles at her admirer. Her love letters are 
the common talk of Paris, because she preaches to the sin- 
ner, when she intends to flatter the lover. 

Before the fortune and grandeur of Napaleone turned 
her head, she was the best of daughters, sisters, wives, and 
mothers; and she still fulfils these several duties better 
thiin any of her sisters ; and in Corsica she is respected as 
the most virtuous of them all, because, like her mother, 
she had only one child before her marriage. 

Since her elevation to an Imperial Highness, Eliza Buo- 
naparte has much altered her foibles as well as her habits. 
Formerly by turns devout and amorous, her occupations 
and passions were divided between heaven and earth; at 
present she is transformed into an invincible coquet, and 
a disbelieving infidel, notwithstanding that she was the 
lirst and the last of her family to demand and obtain froni 
his Holiness the Pope, indulgences and relics, abso'.utioa 
for former sins, consolation for past troubles, and hope for 
future happiness. 

The reason for this unaccountable change, is reported to 
be a disappointment of having children, and a temporary 
folly occasioned by the surprizing and unheard of succes- 
ses of her guilty brother. She is said to have, in Ihe be- 
ginning of April 1805, invited Cardinal Capraru to wait 

Ff 



% 



242 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

on her. When his Eminence arrived, he was, by her 
orders, shown into the innermost room of her hotel. Be« 
lieving that a repenting sinner would unbosom her frailties 
before him, he without suspicion went through six rooms 
before he entered the apartment of the penitent, which 
was her boudoir. As soon as he was seated, she told her 
chamberlain, that she was visible to nobody before sh'e 
rung the bell. She then bolted the door, placed a brace 
of pistols by her side, and ordered the Cardinal to approach 
her. Instead of iniagining the real cause of this state of 
siege, his Eminence supposed her in a state of religious 
despair; he began, therefore, to talk of the bounty of our 
Saviour, of the power of his vicar at Rome, and the exam- 
ple of the crucified robber, which proved that sincere re- 
pentance, however tardy, was not too late. Here she in- 
terrupted him abruptly, with ** none of your nonsense, 
Eminence! you are not asked here to preach, but to act. 
I am told, that for these thirty years past you have never 
slept with a woman; you are short and ugly, it is true, 
but it is no matter to me ; a child I want, and a child I 
will have; here I am laying myself down on the sofa at 
your service. No retreat, Cardinal, if you hesitate a mo- 
ir.ent, if you begin speaking instead of obeying, here are 
the pistols, and you are a dead man." " But," said the 
trembling Cardinal, " my vows to my God, and my dig- 
nity in the church." " Your God," answered the prin- 
cess, " what does he care about you making me a child, 
when he has made Napoieone an Emperor and a King. 
Your dignity ! did not your superior in dignity, the Pope, 
consecrate the same Napoieone on his Imperial throne, he 
who is so deserving and so fearful of the gallows." As the 
Cardinal all the time she was raving had been ringing the 
bell, her whole household was in an uproar, and, headed 
by chamberlains, ladies in waiting, maids of honour, pre- 
fects of palace, equerries, and pages, forced open the door. 
They were all unanimous in laying their hands upon the 
poor pale Cardinal, suspecting from the position of her 
Imperial Highness, that he attempted to commit a sacrile- 
gious and high treasonable rape. She, however, soon un- 
deceived them, by calling out to them to get out of the 
way, that she might shoot the ungallant coward, for refu- 
sing to procure her a child, a future heir to the thrones of 
France and Italy. This avowal of Princess Eliza procured 



# 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



243 



Cardinal Caprara his release, and an opportunity to escape 
to the castle of the Thuilleries, where he informed the 
Emperor of the curious indisposition of his sister. The 
consequence was, that his Majesty forced her Imperial 
Highness Princess Eliza, and his Serene Highness her hus- 
band, to set out with an escort of honour, within four days 
for Ual3\ Arrived at Milan, Prince Bachiocchi alone went 
to Piombino, his princely consort being in a most deplora- 
ble situation, screaming out every instant, " Is Napoleone 
an Emperor and a King! am I an Imperial Highness! are 
my brothers and sisters to have children, and am 1 to have 
none ? 



Princess Eliza continued indisposed at Milan even in 
June 1805, and w^as attended by her physician, Dr. Hus- 
son, member and secretary of the Vaccine Committee. 

The yearly allowance of her Imperial Highness, in 
France, amounts to three millions of livres,and at Piombino, 
to two hundred thousand livres. Her diamonds, plate, and 
china, are valued at six millions of livres. Ninety-two 
persons form her household, of whom a bishop is her almo- 
ner, and two grand vicars her chaplains. Madame la 
Place is her lady in waiting; Madame Brehan-Pelo de 
Crecy,and Madame Chambaudouin, her maids of honour; 
Messrs. D'Esterno and Phillippi, are her chamberlains ; De 
Montrose, is her master of horse, and Picault her equerry ; 
Lesperut is her private secretary, and Villeneuve, her in- 
tendant. 



244 



CHx\RLOTTE BUONAPARTE, 
PRINCESS OF SANTA CRUCE; 



When, in 1796, success crowned Buonaparte's army in 
Italy, the Princess Santa Cruce was an assistant to Madame 
Ramiiaud, a niantua-maker at Marseilles (with vrhom she 
had tor six years been an apprentice), and at the same time 
in the keepin;^- of a soap-manufacturer, a married man, in 
that city, of the name of Julien, by whom she had two 
children. In 1797, she and the present Madame Murat 
accompanied their brother Joseph to Rome, where he was 
appointed by the Directory ambassador of the French 
Republic. The irresistible arms of Napoleone convmced 
the patriotic Roman prince, Santa Cruce, of the all-subdu- 
ing and irresistible attractions of his sister; and she was 
made a princess within twelve months after she had been 
a mantua-maker, and commanded in an elegant hotel in a 
short time after she had left otf serving in a shop. 

INIarricd into this revolutionary family, the Prince Santa 
Cruce tried to become a revolutionary hero : and when the 
plots and intrigues of Joseph Buonaparte had etfected a 
revolution at Rome in 1798, he was made a Roman gene- 
Tai, and commander of the Roman National Guard; but 
in fighting against the Neapolitan troops under Generiil 
Mack, in 1799, be had his leg shot otf. This weak and 
rebellious prince is as ignorant as he is disloyal ; and not- 
withstanding his name and his riches, his crowned head 
and his wooden leg, his rank and patriotism, he is the con- 
tinual object of the jokes of the consular courtiers, of the 
epigrams of the republican wits, and is as much despised 
Its he is really despicable. 

Madame S^^nta Cruce, v/hen she is in health, laughs at 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 245 

her mother's devotion ; but on the least symptom of illness 
she sends sooner for her mother's confessor than for her 
husband's physician: when well, her conversation is blas' 
phemous; when ill, edifying: prosperity makes her an 
atheist; wretchedness would probably make her a chris- 
tian, if not a saint. Her mother often repeats, that the 
Princess Santa Cruce w^ill never be saved if she does not 
die in an hospital. 

When Lucien Buonaparte liad determined to marry ac- 
cording to his own inclination, but contrary to the ambi- 
tious views and absolute orders of Napoleone, he invited 
his brothers Joseph and Louis, and his four sisters, with 
their husbands, to assist at his nuptials. Through fear of 
the Imperial WTath, most of them, however, under differ- 
ent pretexts, declined the invitation. Joseph was tor- 
mented by the gout; Louis suffered from rheumatism; 
Bachiocchi was suddenly taken ill, and Murat had a very 
bad cold : in such circumstances, t!)e wives could not leave 
their husbands, and he received their common apologies at 
the same time. The Prince and Princess Borghese were 
not among the number of these; they had no excuse, no 
complaint being unexpectedly visited by Lucien, 'and 
found all well, an hour before the ceremony was to take 
place. A message to the Emperor informed him of their 
dilemma, and be<,;<yed for advice how to get out of it. His 
Majesty immediately and graciously invited himself to 
dine, and to pass the day with them. The Prince and the 
Princess Santa Cruce, less prudent, or more independent, 
were the only relatives of Lucien who were present at his 
condemned wedding. 

The family quarrels of the petty Buonapartes, whose 
usurped rank has been unable to alter their native sans-cu- 
lotte minds, have often caused their friends uneasiness, 
their rivals pleasure, their enemies satisfaction, and the 
good Parisians of all classes and parties wonderful amuse- 
ment. Since Napoleone seated himself on the throne of 
the Bourbons, hardly a week has elapsed, that one or more 
of the members of his family have not been di' graced, 
insulted, caned, kicked, or exiled by him. Sometimes their 
frequent attendance at court was thought unbecoming, as 
bordering on familiarity ; at other times their long absence 



246 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

was construed into neglect; one day when they presented 
themselves, they were refused admittance; the next day, 
for not calling, they were accused of want of attention, of 
duty. When they appeared often at the Thuillenes, or at 
St. Cloud, they were told that they were troublesome; 
when some days went over without their being there, they 
were suspected of being mutinous, or at least discontent- 
ed. When they attempted to speak in their own defence, 
they were called audacious; when they submitted in silence, 
they were despised as mean. When they petitioned for 
places or emolument, they were informed that they must 
wait their Sovereign's pleasure ; when they waited with 
patience and silence, they were reprobated as having no 
honourable (\qs\\q of rising from their original obscurity, no 
perception of the dignity of elevation, and no notions of 
the comfort and intluence of wealth. It should also be 
stated, that they were often recompensed for all these con- 
trarieties, for all their chastisements and anxiety. The capri- 
cious tyrant, during one moment of good humour, over- 
powered them with his benefactions, and indemnified 
them, in part, for their endurance of several 3'ears' pains 
and humiliations. He frequently squanders away, in fif- 
teen minutes, upon his mother, brothers, and sisters, more 
profitable offices and valuable gifts than the Sovereigns of 
the House of Bourbon had during five centuries bestowed 
on their royal relatives. 

The improper and forbidden marriage of Lucien Buo- 
naparte did not decrease nor put an end to those vexations 
and disagreements of the other Buonapartes with their 
supreme chief Napoleone, who, the next day, forbade the 
Prince and Princess Santa Cruce his court. This act of 
despotism highly offendtd their Serene Highnesses the 
Prince and Princess of Santa Cruce; and, inconsequence, 
the latter is said to have written the following letter to her 
brother, the revolutionary Emperor. 

" \ ou have often told me, dear Napoleone, that you 
found me an apprentice in the shop of a mantua-maker, 
and placed me as the mistress of the palace of a Prince ; 
that from a sans-culotte servant, your victories made me a 
M'ealthy Princess. You have so long and so frequently 
repeated to me what you have done for me, that you must 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 247 

excuse, that T in my turn call to your remembrance what 
I have suffered from you. I do not deny, that, with us 
all, I was poor and reduced; that I worked hard, and gain- 
ed but little; but it is also a fact, that during the few 
hours I could spare for diversions, I was happier than I 
have ever been since ; and I went again behind the counter, 
with greater satisfaction than I ever entered your wife's 
drawing-room, or sat down, at your dinners of state. I 
had a mistress indeed, but when she had done scolding me 
for a fault, or a mistake, I heard no more of it ; you on 
the contrary, like an old ill-natured woman, when once 
irritated, repeat over and over again all my frailties ; eve- 
ry thing that has displeased you from ray infancy to the 
present moment. 

** I have experienced that you have a good memory to 
preserve in remembrance the errors of others, but the worst 
in the world for recalling your own mistakes, your own 
absurdities, your own extravagance, your own ingratitude, 
and, pardon my frankness, even your own crimes. Have 
you forgotten when, in 179^, you spoke of engaging in the 
English service under Paoli ? when, in 1793, your execu- 
tion of the Toulonese excited horror; and when, in conse- 
quence, you were the following year arrested as a terrorist? 
Has it escaped your memory who it was that, by her pray- 
ers; prevented you fiom serving the Grand Turk in 1795, 
as well as Great Britain in 1791; who complained of to 
you, but palliated toothers, the atrocities, you perpetrated 
at Toulon in 1793, and who, at the expence of her own 
necessaries of life, supported you, when a terrorist prisoner 
at Nice in 1794? When you were made a General of Bri- 
gade by Barras in September 1795, can you not recollect 
who pawned her own wearing apparel, not only hergowns^ 
but her very shifts, to pay for your first regimentals as a 
general? What did you say, when at Campo Formio, in 
1797, fortune enabled you to dictate a peace to the Em- 
peror ? did you not tell me, that as I had been your most 
tender and afiectionate sister, I should be the best as well 
as the first provided for? The Prince, my husband, 1 flat- 
ter myself, judging from his expressions, was more taken 
by my trifling natural charms, than induced to marry me 
from the renown of your victories. I am conlirmed in 
this opinion by his kind conduct during your wanderings 



^48 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

in Egypt and in Syria, at a time when nobody in Europe 
ever expected that you would return from Africa and Asia. 
When after having escaped the effects of the climate, and 
the dangers of the weaves; the mutinous disposition of 
your own troops, the fire and sword of your Turkish foes, 
and the vigilance of English cruizers, you again landed in 
France, where, instead of punishment for your desertion, 
you were rewarded with the supreme authority, how did 
you behave to me your dearest sister ? How did you act 
by my husband, who, in uniting himself with our family, 
had sacrificed the friendship of his own; who, deluded by 
your diLpliclty-aijd hypocritical jargon of liberty and equa- 
lity, was maimed iu fighting at the head of the Roman 
patriots? The places of your government, the treasures of 
state, you threw aw-ay on every one related to you, however 
low, ignorant, or unworthy. We alone were left unnoti- 
ced, unrewarded. What have you done for ns since? In 
proportion asyoiir usurped power augmented, your insult- 
ing inditference about us increased. When you made a 
Bachiocchi a general and senator, a INlurat a governor of 
Paris ; when you gave a cardinal's hat to a Fesch, diamonds 
worth millions to the wives of our brothers, to Eliza, to 
Paulette, and to Caroline; what rank did you bestow on 
my husband ; w'hat presents were offered to me? You may 
say, that 3 ou have no title to confer that would not disgrace 
a Prince of Santa Cruce, and no gifts of value for the rich 
Princess his w^fe. Those excuses might have been admis- 
sible in better times, when Sovereigns and Princes knew 
their own dignity, and did not admit the fraternity of 
upstarts; but in our depraved age, supremacy, if ever so 
unjustifiably and treacherously seized, and riches, if ever 
so. infamously acquired, are net despised and abhorred as 
tlie reward of barbarity and meanness, but considered as 
if they were the well-earned fruits of worth and virtue. 
You should have left to us the choice of accepting or de- 
clining, but not have treated us as if we were the outcast 
even of the vilest of the Buonapartes. Excuse my warmth, 
but your unkind treatment makes me regard myself as be- 
longing no more to the Buonaparte family than the Prince 
mv husband. 

•* As to your late fury against Lucien, it is unjust and 
unnatural, as well as cruel and insolent. He is indeed not 



TBE BUONAPx\RTE FAMILY. 



2rD 



pure, but what are his vices and crimes, compared to your 
outrages and enormities? His wife is an honest woman: 
can the same be said of your's ? Even scandal has respect- 
ed Madame Lucien, while incredulity and guilt itself 
must blush in recollecting the profligate deeds that trans- 
formed Josephine de Beauharnois into a Madame Napole- 
one Buonaparte. 

** Do not expect that I will ever supplicate you to re- 
voke the order which forbids me your court. Your court I 
1 can scarcely refrain laughing! Degrade there as much 
as you please the representatives of Emperors and Kings, 
but, depend upon it, you shall never more be honoured 
with my presence. x\s soon as we have arranged our af- 
fairs, my husband and I intend to join at home our wor- 
thier relations, and better bred equals." 

Within four hours the Prince of Santa Cruce received 
the following note from the ^Minister of Police Foiiche : 
*' Sir, by superior command, I. enclose for your Serene 
Highness, for your consort, and attendants, passes to leave 
Paris within twelve hours, and France within six days. I. 
must inspect the execution of these orders. I have the 
honour, &c. 



(Signed) 



" i'OUCH!:.'* 



In two hours the Prince and Princess Santa Cruce were 
in their carriages for Rome, v/here they have resided ever 
since. The allowance of one million of livres, which they 
had from Napoleone, was stopped ; and all the diamon-ds 
the Princess had received from her brother, were, by his 
orders, seized on the frontiers, as by chance, by the custom- 
house officers. All the Roman nobility that formerly 
shunned her, now visit and caress her. From the riches of 
her husband she is enabled to live in great splendour in his 
hotel at Rome. 

Bourrienne, in the Livre Rouge, says, that Madame 
Santa Cruce has obtained, as an establishment, from her 
brotlier Napoleone, one million of livres, presents in jew- 



S50 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

els, &c. worth six hundred thousand livres, one hundred 
thousand livres as annuities to two of her husband's rela- 
tions ; and that she has besides a yearly pension: of six hun- 
dred thousand livres, 



251 



HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS 

MARIA PAULETTE BUONAPARTE, 

PRINCESS OF BORaHESE — CI-DEVANT 
MADAME LE CLERC. 



Quand on ignore tout, pourquoi done enseigner ? 
Quand on port des fers, pourquoi vouloir regner ? 

** I do not want a God more than a God wants me :*' 
these blasphemous words are often in the pretty mouth of 
the present princess Borghese, the youngest sister of the 
First Consul. Instead of acknowledging with gratitude 
the undeserved goodness of a Providence, which from a 
prostitute has made her a princess, and upon the pinnacle 
of fortune's temple, remembering with repentance and 
shame the misery of the night-cellar ; alike vicious, impi- 
ous, and scandalizing in affluence as in wretchedness, she 
bids defiance to the power of her Creator ; she insults the 
hope of the religious, as well as the consolation of the 
moralist ; and augments the afflictions of suffering inno- 
cence, by encouraging or extenuating the infamy of pros-; 
perous crime. Hypocrisy of every kind is bad ; but the 
hypocrisy of Napoleone's atheism is monstrous, because it 
adds cowardice to guilt. It is difficult, however, to say 
which is the most dangerous in a corrupt nation, an atheist 
upon an usurped throne preaching Christianity ; or an ami- 
able, fashionable, and popular woman, spreading about, 
almost by his side, the desolating and dangerous tenets of 
^theism, particularly a^ this woman is known to be his/a- 
vourite sister. 

At the age of fourteen, the Princess Borghese, then 
Pauline Buonaparte, ran away from her mother's house 
with a Sardinian corporal and deserter, Cervoni ; and 
until Napoleone's usurpation, in 1799, when she (according 



©52 REA'OLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

to the pamphlet La Sainte Famille) was found, covered 
with rags and disease, in a house of ill-fame in the Rxie 
St. Honore, her relations were entirely ignorant of what 
was become of her. To reward the patriotic services of an 
accomplice at Toulon, as well as in Italy and at Jaffa, Na- 
poleone permitted the notorious terrorist General Le Clerc, 
son of a miller, to marry this worthy princess of his blood, 
Le Clerc, besides the usualsums of money allotted to each 
consular sister, received as a portion, lirst, the command 
over the arn^.y in Portugal, and the plunder of that king- 
dom, and afterwards the corrim.and of the expedition to 
St. Domingo, and a colony to pillage, enslave, and ruin. 

In December ISOI, Madame Le Clerc sailed with her 
husband for St. Domingo, and witnessed all the atrocities 
of that republican pro-consul. Though she possessed an 
lit^common influence over this ferocious character, neither 
his treason against the unfortunate Toussaint, nor the 
shocking torments and punishments which he inflicted on 
those negroes whom his conduct had made desperate, were 
prevented by her ; on the contrary, if the already quoted 
pamphlet be to-be belieyed, she often enjoyed, and even 
commanded as an amusement, the disgusting sight of mu- 
tilated blacks roasted alive, or devoured alive by her hus- 
band's faithful allies the Spanish blood-hounds. Her only 
occupation besides, was lo gather and heap up new trea- 
sures, from the daily, if not hourly extortions, requisitions, 
and confiscations of her husband; and after his death, she 
accompanied her ill-gotten riches to France. During her 
voyage, she condescended] to accept the consolation of a 
colonel, for the loss of a general ; and to permit the con- 
tinuance of the services of one of Le CIerc*s former aid- 
de-camps, which obliged her to put off for near six months 
her nuptials with the patriotic Roman Prince Borghese ; 
who, no doubt obtained her cliaste hviud from the First 
Consul Buonaparte in France, as an wdemnJty for the pro- 
perty which the Borghese family had lost by the plunder 
of General Buonaparte in Italy. 

Though the German princes are more numerous, less 
rich, and as selfish as the Italian ; yet their pride has got 
the better of their egotism, and they have not dishonoured 
their rank bv courting qp marrying the vicious sisters of -^ 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. Q5g 

beggarly usurper. Prince Borghese, like his countryman 
tlie Prince Santa Cruce, had no reason to be so nice, be- 
cause he had proclaimed his patriotic treachery before the 
banns of his sans culotte marriage were pubHshed. He 
was, in 179S and 1799, an active citizen under the short- 
lived Roman Republic; and to prove his piinciples of 
equality, condescended, with the Prince Colonna, the Duke 
di Montelibretto, and other Roman nobles, " to serve as a 
common soldier in a corps, of which the captain was a 
man who sold tripe and dog's meat in the streets.'* He 
was, in 1798, a memberof a jacobin club, which the French 
conferred upon the Romans jn compensation for the loss 
of their liberty, religion, and property. This club was 
established in the palace of the Duke of Altemps, where, 
as in France, the sons denounced their parents: noyades 
were recommended, priests proscribed, and a proposi- 
tion made, " to begin the regeneration of Rome by put- 
ting to death all people oged above sixiy^ as incapable, 
through the obstinacy of old age, of renouncing their an* 
cient prejudices." 

Persons who were present at the nuptials of the Prince 
Borghese and Madame Le Clerc, affirm, that their behavi- 
our during the religious ceremony, when Cardinal Caprara 
gave the marriage blessing, was such as to cause even this 
tool of Napoleone to blush, notwithstanding all the former 
hypocritical and sacrilegious scenes which he had wit- 
nessed, since he began to assist the First Consul in orga- 
nizing a revolutionary religion in the French common- 
wealth. 

In Les. Nouvelles a la Main, of Brumaire, year xii. it is 
fiaid, that the First Consul declared, in public, that, con- 
sidering the situation of the republican treasury, he could 
not do what he washed for the dearest of his sisters ; to 
whom and to whose husband, when surrounded by cour- 
tiers in the drawing-room, he offered presents of little va- 
lue ; but in secret, when enfamille, the new married cou- 
ple received from him in drafts upon Spain and Portugal, 
m jewels, &c. to the amount of four millions of livres, 
besides an ecrin, or jewel box, presented by Madame Na- 
poleone, containing jewels worth half a million. The 
fortune which General Le Clerc left his widow was cal- 



S54 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

culated to be at least six millions ; so that this daughter 
of a sans-cuiotte Ijrought her princely husband a princely 
fortune. 

The Emperor of the French had invited his Holiness 
the Pope, for the lotli of January 1805, to a family party 
in the Empress's apartments of the castle of the Thoiile- 
ries, where none but the Buonapartes, and some favourite 
and select friends, were admitted. During a moment's si- 
lence, when the tea was handed about by thei»' revolution- 
ary Majesties' chamberlains, her Imperial Highness Prin- 
cess of Borghese suddenly burst out a laughing, so loud 
and so long, that Napoleone the First commanded her to 
cease, or to leave the room. ** Please your Majesty, be not 
offended," said she, with naivete, " I am not always mis- 
tress of myself, when any laughable ideas occur to me. I 
was just thinking hov/ it would edify our contemporaries;, 
and astonish posterity, had the Holy Father, who sits there 
so grave, received the gift of converting me to Christianity, 
or if I possessed the spirit of perverting him to infidelity,'* 
*' It is too much," interrupted Cardinal Fesch; " I cannot, 
I ought not to suffer such a scandal, such a blasphemy. I 
will tell your Imperial Highness, improbable as it seems 
to you, that it is more easy to make you a christian pro- 
selyte, than an honest and modest woman." — " Out, out 
with you both. Princess and Eminence!" cried his Ma- 
jesty the Emperor in a rage. " Am I not the sovereign 
master in my oxen palace as well as in my own empire? 
Am I not here the only person competent to jqdge of in- 
decencies as well as of impertinences; of improprieties a£ 
well as of indecorous demeanour, to correct the former 
and chastise the latter. The Princess is in the wrong, but 
you. Cardinal, are very much to blame for daring to repri- 
mand her in my presence. I command you both to retire 
instantly from the compan}^ and to remain confined to 
your own hotels, and there await my good pleasure and 
pardon." — " Most gracious Monarch," said Pius VII. " for- 
give them for my sake, and let them remain where they 
are. They sinned unintentionally, and not deliberately. 
I pardon them, do your Majesty graciously do the same. 
And you, Princess," continued his Holiness, " as convinced 
as I am of my Cardinal's orthodoxy, as certain I am that 
you, before your death, will become one of nay flock," — 



..THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 255 

" Then, Holy Father," retorted the Princess, " you must 
live to a great age."—" Silenee, Imperial Highness,'* ex-* 
claimed the Emperor with a stern voice. " Throw your- 
self down and beg his Holiness's pardon this instant, or I 
will in an hour send you away from m?/ dominions, never 
to return again.'*" If that is the case," stammered the Prin.. 
sess, kneeling, " then permit me to kiss the Holy Father'^ 
feet, and to implore his forgiveness and indulgencies." The 
Pope, in giving her his blessing, raised her, and present^ 
ed his hand to kiss. In returning to her seat by the side of 
her Imperial Highness Princess Louis, the Princess of 
Borghese muttered loud enough to be heard by most per- 
sons present, " What a villanous wrinkled hand has that 
Monsieur Vice-Christ ; and how ridiculously ungallant he 
is ! how rude, to think of ofiering me his old dirty hand to 
kiss, instead of taking advantage of his situation, and em- 
bracing such a handsome gay lady as myself— me, who 
have turned the heads of all the beaux of France, StJ Do- 
mingo, and Italy ; of the army, of the navy, and of the 
church !" Napoleone, with one of those terrible and sig- 
nificant looks, which belong exclusively to his Majesty 
himself, put a stop to her soliloqiiy ; and the happiness and 
enjoyment of the evening was not mterrupted by any other 
accident, except that Madame D'Arberg, the Empress's 
lady in waiting, to the great alarm of all the party, scalded 
with hot tea the Imperial lap-dog of her sovereign Bijou. 
The bulletin of the following day announced, however, to 
the sincere consolation of fifteen thousand visitors, who in- 
quired after its health, " that the Imperial beast was in a 
fair way of convalescence." 

Before the Princess of Borghese was up the next morning, 
a message was left for her from the Emperor her brother, 
informing her that she was expected hy his Majesty, who 
would graciously see her at three o*clock in the afternoon 
on that day. After having dressed herself in a very co- 
quetish manner, she went to the palace of the Thuilleries, 
and was ushered into the most secret closet of his Majesty, 
who at her entrance through one door, let out his Favourite 
Mameluke through another. " Saris facons, brother Na- 
poleane, " said the lively and giddy Princess Borghese, 
" what can you want with me at this hour, and particu- 



^6 ' REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

larly at this moment,when yoMY bon ami, Rostan, has just 
)eft you ? I understand you want variety — the ttte-a-tete 
of an infidel h therefore to follow that of a Mussulman." — 
*' Can you,..sisteri" interrupted Napoleone, " be serious 
for the ten minutes I intend and must speak seriously with 
you'} You know too well, that next to my dear Princess 
Louis, you have the greatest power over me of all our re- 
latives ; that if you are complaisant someti^nes to me, I am 
always kind and generous to you. You know also, because 
I have often explained it to you, that next to the military 
support of my brave and devoted troops, I trust to the spi- 
ritual authority of the Pope, and his supremacy over the 
Christian Catholic church, for the preservation of my Im- 
perial throne, and for its continuance in the possession of 
the Buonaparte dynasty : 

Lcs Rois n'ont plus de trone ou Dieu n'a plus de temple ! 
: Que la Religion qui soutient macouronne 
Recoivede mon bras, Pappui qu'elle mc donne. 

You smile at my poetic declamation, but Portalis has sc.- 
often repeated these lines, that I know them by heart ; 
and whenever the avarice, bi^'otry, or superstition of the 
clergy put me out of humour, I get the better of my angei 
in recollecting the political justness of these lines. It was 
the infidelity of Frenchmen, as much as the imbecility of 
the ministers of the too good Louis XVI. that overturned 
the throne of that prince, sent him to the scaffold, and ba- 
nished and excluded for ever from France the Bourbon race, 
I, a sovereign of four years only, have I not much to ap- 
prehend from the sacrilegious monster that subverted a 
dynasty of fourteen centuries standing, and almost urtin^ 
terrupted prosperity ? You cannot conceive all the ditTicul • 
ties I had to surmount ; all the discussions, all the obstacles, 
uU the arguments and all the sophistry, which pretended 
philosophers, revolutionary fanatics, depraved reformers, 
immoral republiciins, and sanguinary atheists, opposed to 
the restoration of religion in the French empire. I was 
obliged to cajole and bribe some, to terrify and exile others, 
and to remove and punish the most refractory of the in- 
discreet and impolitic crew of infidels. I am well aware, 
that all enlightened persoQs, with yon, understand how tn 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



857 



estimate truly my Christian zeal ; consider my Catholic- 
ism as mere mockery, and my Catholic Pope as a super- 
stitious ideot, my political puppet. But e%'en those who, 
with you and me, do not believe in a God, are convinced 
of the utility and necessity, as well as of the policy, of im- 
planting religious notions into the minds of a fickle, vain, 
unprincipled, and naturally ferocious people. They re- 
member the shocking and barbarous scenes of 1793 and 
1794, and therefore prefer the military and ecclesiastical, 
to the popular and atheistical yoke. More people perished 
by the republican guillotine of infidels and unbelievers, 
during eighteen months, than during the eight preced- 
ing centuries had been reduced tc ashes by the faggots 
of religious presecutors and inquisitorial tormentors. Last 
night I was as highly offended as every body else was 
.'<candalized, by your inconsistent and improper ctourde- 
Tie. I am, as well as you, acquainted with the con- 
temptible character of modern Frenchmen, my dutiful 
subjects ; and that at a given signal from me, they 
would all be ready to prostrate themselves with the 
Mussulman, pray with the Protestant, nowl hymns with 
the Methodist, kneel before the rising sun with the Indian, 
worship the cow or the crocodile with the Egyptian, 
plunge themselves into the Ganges with the Braniin, adore 
the Devil with the Abyssinians, lay down offerings to the 
moon with the Icelanders, go to mass, confess, and com- 
municate with the Roman Catholic. But I hope that the 
perversity of the present generation, should my reign con- 
tinue prosperous and lone?, will not descend to its descen- 
dants, to future generations and ages. In our private 
j>arty last night, I do think, that, with the exception of 
Pius VII. and one of his six Cardinals, there v/as nobody 
who was a real Christian in his heart. You observed, 
iiowever, how much they all felt themselves hurt by your 
imprudent sortie, your indiscreet sally ; because all for the 
preservation of civilized society, were, with myself, per- 
suaded of the necessity, at least of being externally Chris- 
tians, of not saying any thing to be reprobated by the piety 
of the faithful, or scandalizing the scruples of the conscien- 
tious or devout. Let me therefore conjure you to be hereaf- 
ter more decent, prudent, and discreet. Believe me, that 
notwithstanding my sincere affection for yoy, should you 

H h 



55S Rl^VOLtrtlONARY PLUTARCH. 

not cease your profane and irreverent language and expres- 
sions when in company with strangers, or with our family 
and visitors at my court, I shall, for the safety of us all, bfe 
obliged to silence my own inclination, and listen to my duty 
as a sovereign, by ordering you into exile on one of your 
husband's estates on the other side of the Alps ; and re- 
nounce for ever all the satisfaction and pleasure I have pro- 
mised myself from your conversation and tenderness.*' 

"Admire my patience, brother," repleied the Princess 
of Boighese, " in listening with attention and silence to 
your excellent sermon and eternal capuciiiade. It is very 
easy for you, dear Napoleone, who are so eiKhusiastically 
fond of your rank and authority, and who from your youth 
have studied dissimulation, and made duplicity habitual, 
to stifle your real sentiments, and be as much at your eas? 
in the company of ithpostors and hypocrites of every des- 
cription as with men of honour, veracity, and integrity. 
But as l^o me whom from ^ prostitute you have made a 
princess, and who do not care a pin about it, were you to 
make me a harlot again, provided I can gratify my passions 
and inclinations ; I who never concealed my real thoughts, 
nor spoke what I did not think, was I to promise you to 
esteem what 1 scorn, and to scorn what I esteem, I should 
deceive you, and for the first time in my life not act frank- 
ly with you. For example, was it not disgusting, last 
night, to see the apostate and atheist Talleyrand, who has 
so frequently confirmed me in my infidelity, throw him- 
self down at the feet of a pontiff (who has not so much sense 
in his whole body as the ex-bishop and minister has in his 
little finger) and to remain on his knees, during a good quar- 
ter of an hour, until Pius VII. had finished his mummery ? 
was it not enough to excite one's laughter, to see this same 
grave Pope placing his old and ugly hands to be kissed by 
th? most beautiful women of France ? who could help 
smiling at observing your own chaste and religious Josephine 
&o devoutly demand, and so readily obtain his Holiness'* 
blessing ? and when our own dear and imbecile uncle 
Fesch, moving in his brilliant cardinal's dress, as if he 
had been shut up in a sack, after the departure of the Pope, 
began in his turn his ridiculous solemn grimaces, was it 
.possible to be serious, or rather was not laughter irresistr- 
ble? Do you not suppos'j that, many besides myself re-- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^ofli 

tnarkiecl these and other absurdities and contradictions, 
repugnant to the eyes, and repulsive to the mind ? and do 
you imagine that their respect for the visible head of the 
Roman Catholic religion was so much augmented, that 
they went away improved or even satisfied ? As a friend, 
I advist^you not to expose this idol of the faithful to their 
view too often, for fear that they may discover its deform- 
ities, or their own fallacy. If you do not wish to have your 
own works undermined and perhaps blown up,send away 
as soon as possible, or shuf-up as closely as you decently 
can, the Roman Pontilf. Without the least intention of 
hurting your pride, vanity, or policy, I tell you with sin- 
cerity, that by his consecration of you as an Emperor, he 
certainly has lost a great deal of the veneration formerly 
paid to the tiara and to his holy pftice. 

" As to your menaces of banishing me from your pre,- 
sence, or of exiling me to the country seats of my husband 
in Italy, when you call to your remembrance that you 
alone have made me what I am, and such as I am, I do 
not fear them much. I do not think it possible that you 
could thus treat a sister who is and has always been your 
confidential and trusty friend ; whom you converted loan 
atheist, and seduced to become incestuous ; who, without 
your reasonings and your persuasion, might still have been 
among the number of the select pure and chaste few\ But 
I see that what I say affects you, and I believe even afflicts 
you, let us therefore embrace each other and make peace ; 
as, however, the ratifications of treaties of peace are always 
accompanied with presents, I expect from you something 
more substantial than an embrace." — The Emperor im- 
mediately took from a closet a diamond necklace, worth 
half a million of livres (20,0001.) which he fastened round 
the ivory neck of the Princess, assuring her, " that when 
in future displeased with her words or transactions, he 
should not use his own power, but apply to her own feel- 
ings." The same day the Prince of Borghese was made a 
grand officer of the Legion of Honour, and was presented 



^SO 



REVOLUTIONARY TLUTARGH. 



with a watch set with diamonds, as valuable as the neck- 
lace given to his wife.* 

^ "'^he Princess Borghese is now (1805) in her twenty- 
eighth year, and has been married two years to her present 
husband, and was three 37ears the wife of General Le Clerc, 
who died in the spring of 1803, by whom she had two 
sons, who have survived him. The Prince of Borghese is 
not yet a father. Her yearly allowance from her brother 
amounts to four millions oflivres; her diamonds, plate, 
pictures, china, &c. are esteemed worth teti millions ; and 
iier property in the funds or in estates, is calculated to be 
Worth above fifteen millions, of which ten millions were 
left her by her former husband, of his plunder in Portugal 
and St. Domingo. As well as all her brothers and sisters, 
bhehas her chamberlains, maids of honour, lords and ladies 
in waiting, equerries, and pages ; but she has not, as all 
her other Imperial relatives, a bishop for an almoner, or 
grand vicars for her chaplains ; she is, however, the only 
Imperial Highness on whom Napoleone has bestowed a 
suit of elegant apartments in the castle of St. Cloud. 

At her former marriage, according to the Livre Rouge 
hy Bourrienne, the now Princess Borghese obtained one 
million of livres for an establishment, half a million for 
going to St. Dcmin.2:o, three hundred thousand livres as an- 
nuities for some of her husband's relations, presents, jewels, 
&c. for six hundred thousand livres; and she enjo3^s the 
same sum of six hundred thousand livres as a yearly pen- 
sion during her life. 

*ln LesNouvelles a la Main, Ventosr, an xiii. No 3, p. 4, ct 
seq. from which the above particulars are translated, it is st&ted 
that they were written by the Princess herself, and circulated 
by her, to shew her influncc over her brother* 



£6i 



GENERAL MURAT, 

BKOTHER-IN-LAW OF BUONAPARTE. 



C'est du sein des sifflets. 
Que naissent les succes. 

Since the destruction of the Roman empire by the 
Goths, Huns, and Vandals, no political convulsions have, 
in so short a time, brought forv^^ard from obscurity so many 
Jov7 and unknovi'n individuals as revolutionary France. 
During the last twelve years more persons have appeared 
upon her bloody stage, who, from their more or less inter- 
esting posts, have unexpected!}^ become the objects of 
public curses, curiosity, inquiry, or conversation, than in 
the twelve preceding centuries. Not only every year, 
but ahuost every month, has changed the performers, though 
not the scene ; and men who but lately were regarded as 
the underlings of this shocking theatre, start suddenly for- 
ward, usurp the place of the first rate tragedians, proscribe, 
crush, or butcher their predecessors, and rule with an iroa 
rod until, in their turn, we see them overpowered, dead, or 
dethroned. Republican tyrants have been killed by repub- 
lican tyrants : Brissot, Condorcet, Petion, and their ac- 
complices, were guillotined or outlawed by Danton, Ro- 
bespierre, and their blood-hounds ; who after devouring 
each other, were nearly annihilated by the Barras, by the 
Talliens, by the Merlins, by the Rewbels, &c. who, in 
their turn, were removed or exiled by Buonaparte. Un- 
fortunately, the republican tyranny has survived them all ; 
the republican scaffolds erected in the year I, are yet 
standing in the year 12 ; and if the regicide Maximilian 
Robespierre murdered one Bourbon in 1793, the poisoner 
and assassin Napoleon Buonaparte butchered another Bour- 
bon in 1804. If in 1795, the regicide Director Barras poi- 
soned in the Temple, his rival, Louis XVII, in 1804 the 
abominable First Consul Buonaparte strangled in the same 



£62 THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 

prison his rival, General Pichegru ; and the republican 
dungeons contain as many innocent victims under the 
reign of terror in Buonapartes Consulate, as they did- 
under that of Robespierre's vile Committee of Public 
Safety. 

General Murat, who stands foremost among the many 
iactive and guilty instruments or accomplices of Buona- 
parte, is the son of a water-carrier at Pans, who, for some 
crime, to save himself from the search of the police, fled 
into the mountains of Dauphiny, where he joined a gang of 
smugglers and coiners, and vvhere General Murat was born 
in 1764."^ Being accused of belonging to that corps of 
brigands commanded by the famous captain of smugglers 
Mandrin, Murat's father was tried at Valence, and there 
broken upon the wheel in May ifbY) : and young Murat 
was sent to the orphan-house at Lyons, where he remain- 
ed, until an actor of the name of St. Aubin took him as 
an errand boy procured him to be a Garcon du Theatre^ 
or a servant attached to the theatre in that city, and paid, 
besides, a master for teaching him to read and write. Being 
of an intriguing disposition and good appearance, he easily 
insinuated himself into the favour of the principal actresses, 
and was in 1780, upon their recommendation, permitted 
to appear upon the stage, first in the parts of valets, and 
afterwards in those o^ petits maitres ; but in neither was he 
«uccessful, wanting manners, memory, and application. 
He was, however, endured until 17S(), when, being hissed 
while playing the Marquis, in the comedy called he Circle 
lie dared to threaten the spectators by his gestures. From 
that time hisses pursued him so much whenever he pre- 
sented himself, that he was obliged to quit the stage ; and 
after leaving Lyons secretly to avoid the demands of his 
creditors, he enlisted in the regiment of cavalry called 
Royal Allemugne, which was with other corps ordered to 
the neighbourhood of Paris, when, in 1789, Orleans, La 
Fayette, and other rebels of the Constituent Assembly, 
«et up the standard of revolt against their King: he was 

*It is said that Murat is the son of a corporal in the Guet,and 
was in I7yO, a soldier of ihe regiment of Flanders ; but several 
raore authentic works quoted heraft^er, giv# him the parentage, 
&c. related here. 



tHE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. m 

&mong the few men of that loyal regiment whom their 
emissaries seduced, and he deserted when it was encamp- 
ed in the Elysian Fields on the 12th of July. After the 
capture of the Bastile had completed the Revolution, and 
several companies of the King's guard had joined the 
'Parisians in arms, a National Guard under the command 
of La Fayette was decreed, in which Murat was made 
a corporal. In the plots and disagreements of different 
factions he always assisted the Terrorists : and in return, 
Santerre promoted him to^a Lieutenancy in the battalion 
of St. Antoine, of which that brewer then had the com- 
mand. On the 20th of June, 1792, he accompanied hii 
patron and the brigands who insulted the unfortunate 
Louis XVI. and his family in the Castle of theThuilleries, 
"where he was heard to repeat : Louis, tu es un traitre, il 
nousfaut ta tete ;* and when the courageous Madame Eli- 
zabeth said : " Are you not ashamed to insult the most 
patriotic of Kings with such language?" he impudently 
answered: Tais toi coquine, autrementjete coupe en deux.f 
The next day Santerre advanced him to be his aid-de- 
camp ; and as such he was employed on the 10th of 
August in the attack of that dreadful day, which made 
the best of Princes the most wretched of prisoners, by 
changing the throne into a dungeon. 

Marat, Danton,Mehee, Tallien, and other assassins, who 
prepared the massacres of the prisoners, regarded Santerre 
as a man possessing little or no character: they therefore 
sent him on an expedition to Versailles, that he might be 
absent when these cruelties were perpetrated ; and the 
command of different districts of the city of Paris was con- 
fided to men as barbarous as themselves. Murat headed 
the troops who on the 2d, 3d, and 4th of September, of 
the same year guarded the prison called La Force; where, 
with other innocent persons, the beautiful Princess of Lam- 
balle was butchered, and a refinement of savage barbarity 
was exercised on her person, even when a corpse, almost 



* Louis, thou art a traitor ; we must ha^e thy head ! 

t Hold thy tongue b — h, otherwise I will cut thee in two. 



264 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

incredible, if it were not authenticated.* For these infa- 
mous and ferocious deeds he was promoted by Marat to be 
a Colonel. But, instead of going to the frontiers and com- 
batting the enemies of his country, he remained at Paris, 
denounced at the clubs, and plotted in the committees. 
On the llth of December, when Louis XVL was carried 
from the Temple to be interrogated at the bar of the Na- 
tional Convention ; and on the ^Ist of January, 1793, when 
the regicide members of that Assembly sent the most virtu- 
ous of sovereigns and of men to die like a criminal ; the 
gens d'armes of the escort were commanded by Murat, 
who had passed the night before on duty in the Temple, 
regarded then as a post of confidence and oihonour : In 
March, during the pillage of the grocers shops, he Avasa 
Secretary in the Jacobin Club, and signed with Marat the 
proclamation of the 10th, addressed to the citizens sans- 
culottes at Paris, inviting them to do themselves justice for 
the cifistocracy of the bankers, merchants, and shop-keepers, 
*' If you want money," expresses this curious proclama- 
tion, *' you know where the bankers live ; if you stand in 
need of clothing, visit the clothiers ; and if you have no 
other means to procure yourselves coffee, sugar, soap, &c. 
fraternize with the grocers. What you take from them is 
only your property restored to you, and of which you and 
your brethren have been robbed by their aristocratical 
cupidity. In May he was president of the Club of the 
^Cordeliers ; and in a speech printed in Marat's paper, 
Uami dn Peuple, of the 25th of the same month, he de- 
mands the heads of sixty-nine politicians of BrissoVs and 
Roland's factions as the sole promoters of the defeats of the 
armies, and of the troubles at Lyons, Bonrdeaux, and Mar- 
seilles ; accomplices with Pitt and Cohourg, as well as with 
Dumourier. 

After the revolution of the 31st of May, and the victory 
which the terrorists gained on the two following days over 
the moderate party, Santerre obtained the command of an 

* All the particulars of Murat's birth, &c. and transaction* 
until 1796, are taken from Les Annates dtr Terrorisme, and Le 
Recucil d* Anecdotes. In the latter, chap xi. page 97, it is said, 
that he ordered the head of the princess of Lamballe to be car- 
ried to the Queen, with whom she was a favourite; and had a 
wig made of her hair, which he cut otT before she was cold. ^ 



tpHE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. oqs 

trmy of 14,000 men, with whom he marched agahist the 
royalists of La Vendee ; and Murat, who was then advan- 
ced to a general of brigade, commanded the cavalry ; but, 
either from misfortunes or from incapacity, he was conti- 
nnally route<J, and two-thirds of the troops were killed in 
lessthan three weeks. This caused great discontent at Pa- 
ris, both hi the Jacobin Club and in the National Conven- 
tion ; and Santerre was recalled in disgrace, which was 
made so much the more rflortitying, when, being accused 
by Mi I rat of drunkennesy, Jgnorance, and cowardice, he 
was sent to prison.* 

When, after the death of Marat, an emulation took place 
between All the sans-culottes patriots of those days, who 
should bestow the greatest praise on this worthy apostle of 
French republicanism, the most extravelgant motions were 
made by the jacobins; the most violent speeches were pub- 
lished ; and the most atrocious addresses were circufatedl 
all over France. On this occasion, Murat sent to the Jaco-. 
bin Club, in the street St. Honorc, at Paris, the following- 
letter, printed in Le Journal des Jacobins of July *28th, 
1793, page 6, and in Le Recueil d' Anecdotes^ tome ii. 
page 9^. 

*' BROTHERS AND FRIENDS, 

** Chance made my name nearly the satne with that of 
the ever-regretted martyr of equalifr, Marat ; /e//ou'-/Ve/-. 
hig made me his admirer, before conviction made me his 
worshipper, or patriotism his follower, defender, and 
mourner. Others have offered perfumes upon the altar of 
this their country's god of liberty ; others have composed 
hymns to the glory of this the best and^r^^ of French re- 
publicans; others, again, have placed his bust by the side 
of the immortal Gracchus, Publicola, and Brutus! 

** A soldier who possesses nothing but his love of liberty 
and his valour, his enthusiasm, sans-culottism, and his 
sword, can neither build altars, nor carve statues, neither 

* During bis command in La Vendee, Murat gave once for 
his watch- word * Pillage, rallying, horror 1 — Pillage, ralliantrttt 
horretir ! Prudhonime Hi?toire Generale, torn. i. page 23, 

Ii 



mo REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

sing apotheoses, nor write deifications : but he can do moxc ; 
he can immolate himself. If an hecatomb of the carcases of 
Marat's friends had been decreed, upon its summit before this 
day should have been placed my corpse. It is neither am- 
bition to shine with borrowed colours, nor presumption to 
think that millions of sans-culottes, are not as good patriots 
as myself. It is neither meant as a reproach to the luke- 
warni zeal of others, nor as a praise of that ardour, which 
almost consumes me, and forces me to desire io eternalize 
the name of Mare^t. No! I am much above those petty 
and selfish considerations. I am a sans-culotte by birth as 
well as Marat ; my father died a victim to the tyranny of 
kings, as he did to the treachery of kingly aristocracy. I 
am 'married to a sans-culotte woman, now in a situ- 
ation to give citizens, to the Republic. Let my progeny 
immortalize the memory of Marat, by permitting me to 
change only one letter of my name. I promise you, bro- 
thers and friends, upon the faith of a jacobin mountai- 
neer, that, should I observe any aristocratical inclination 
in my children, another Brutus, I shall be their execution- 
er !- Accept, therefore, this patriotic offer from your de- 
voted fellow sans-culotte. — The jacobins for, ever! The 
mountain forever! The guillotine forever! Health and 
fraternity. 

(Signed) ** Mar jlt ci-devant Mur at." 

p 

This offer, however, was declined, upon the observation 
of Citizen Felix Pelletier de Sti Forgeaux, " that was every 
sans-culotte patriot permitted to follow his inclination, 
twenty millions of Marats would already have been regis- 
tered at the municipalities of the French Republic* Besides, 
the constitutional equality of the French commonwealth, 
could never allow any distinction that would place one 
citizen above another; and a person who now should be suf- 
fered to call himself Marat, would be as much above other 
citizens in the public opinion, as Louis Capet was, from 
the imbecility or weakness of his subjects, regarded ten 
years ago." This sans-culotte, de St. Forgeaux, was a bro- 
ther to the murdered regicide of that name, and had a re- 
venue of 300,000 I ivres or 12,000/. This curious monu- 
ment of the former revolutionary sentiments of Murat 
forms a striking contrast with the present aristocratical con- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 267 

duct and notions of this General, now as vain and proud of 
his rank, riches,and fraternity with a First Consul, as he was 
theo ambitious of being considered a sansculotte a la Ma- 
rat, the most blood-thirsty of all French sans-culottes, Robes- 
pierre not excepted. 

In the winter of the same year, Murat cammanded at 
Lyons a brigade of the horse chasseurs of the revolution- 
ary army, with the 9th regiment of dragoons. These corps 
were chiefly employed to arrest those inhabitants whom the 
vengeance or ferocity of the pro-consuls, Collot D'Herbois, 
Dubois-Creance, Fouche, and others proscribed ; to escort 
them, after their mock trials, to be executed, or to exe- 
cute them, by shooting, or cutting them down with their 
swords. In the spring of 1794, he was ordered to join the 
army of the Alps, where he continued without distinguish- 
ing himself until 1796, when Buonaparte assumed the com- 
mand over that army; where, hearing of Murat's local 
knowledge and military intelligence, he appointed him first 
aid-de-camp, and the second officer in the statf next to Ge- 
neral Berthier. He now shewed not only an undaunted 
courage, but talents which nobody supposed him to possess 
before the battle of Mondovi, on the 17thof April, 179(5, 
where he caused himself to be particularly remarked ; so 
much so, when the King of Sardinia, in the latter part of 
the same month, made overtures for a pacification with the 
French republic, Buonaparte sent him to Turin with full 
powers to negociate, and afterwards gave him, together 
with General Juvot, the honourable commission to carry to 
Paris, and to present to the Directory, the 21 colours and 
standards conquered in several engagements from the com- 
bined army of Austria and Sardinia. On the 24th of May 
he came again to Turin, with dispatches from Paris, con- 
cerning the negotiations then carrying on between France 
and Sardinia; but after a stay of some days only, Buona- 
parte ordered him back to the army, where he daily ad- 
vanced in the good graces of this Chief. In June he ac- 
companied the French minister at Genoa, Fay poult, to the 
Doge, with a summons in the name of Buonaparte, t© or- 
der the Imperial Ambassador to leave the territory of the 
Republic at Genoa within 48 hours, he here behaved with 
such insolence, that it was with difficulty the. old and re- 
spectable Doge, whom he had so cowardly insulted, coul<i 



y 



2GS REVOLUTIONARY ' PLUTARCH. 

prevent the people from tearing him to pieces. This was 
the first specimen of the intended French republican fra- 
ternity v/hich this ancient Republic experienced, and the 
lirst act of Buonaparte's revolutionary diplomacy, not to 
respect the sacred and privileged characters of the repre- 
sentatives of independant princes to independant states, 
though protected by those laws of nations, acknowledged 
and legarded as inviolable by the unanimous consent of all 
civilized gQvernments over all civilized people.Had the con- 
tinental Princes, (not then quite so degraded and enslaved as 
they now are) resented in a spirited and determined manner 
this impertinent infraction, and attempt of a fortunate up- 
start to make power pass for right, and passion for justice^ 
the world would not since have witnessed the temple at 
Paris inhabited by foreign ministers, nor seen them worse 
treated in the palace of the Thuilleries, than even in th^>t 
state prison. 

When one neutral and independant country in Italy had 
already been unlawfully attacked, as Buonaparte advanced 
with his armed banditti, all other weak states might, in iU 
invasion and subversion, read their own destiny. The vi- 
olent hatred of this General against England, has shewn 
itself from the first month that his crimes and fortune eleva- 
ted him into notoriety. 7'he Grand Duke of Tuscany, af- 
ter unwillingly renouncing his neutrality in 1793, renewed, 
on the 9th of February, 1795, his former treaties vyith 
France; a French minister resided at Florence; and the 
South of France, sutfering from a famine, was liberally 
provided with supplies from Leghorn. But advantageous 
as the neutrality of Tuscany was to the French Republic, 
and sacred as the ties should have been which united these 
two Governments^no sooner bad the Genoese territory been 
invaded, terrified, and plundered, than Buonaparte gave 
ordera for one division o*" his army, under the command of 
Generals Vaubois and Murat, to advance by forced march- 
es toward Leghorn, cmd to seize upon that city, the rich 
depot of Englivsh product and industry; and on the 2Sth 
of June his orders were executed by these Generals, who 
on that day occupied all the forts; and, in a proclamation, 
declared all British property in this neutral place to be 
confiscated to the French Republic. In some few days 
more/finesj imprisonment, and even death, was inflicted 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY, 26g 

on ^11 persons who did not make fair declarations. The 
consequence was, that in twelve days, or before the 11th 
of July, according to the pamplet called Les Crimea des 
Republicams en Italic, p. 177, General Murat carried away 
from Leghorn 500,000 sequins, or 250,000/. ; a sum of mo- 
ney that he no doubt more than shared with his Comman- 
der, who, by this robbery ,from which British subjects were 
the chief sutferers, had an opportunity to gratify two of hi$ 
many nohle passions : his spiteful malice against this coun- 
try, and his unbounded cupidity every where ! in Italy a* 
in Germany, in Europe as in Africa. 

On the 18th of the same month. General Murat com- 
manded [the attack to the left, on the entrenched camp of 
the Austrians near Mantuaj and succeeded in carrying it. 
For several weeks gained almost daily advantages over the 
Imperial General Wiirmser, who commanded an harassed, 
defeated, dispirited and inferior ai'my. In the retreat which 
this General was forced to make on the 9th of September, 
Murat pursued him at the head of a corps of chasseurs ; 
and on the 11th tried to cut otf his retreat towards Ceva, 
But after having routed several divisions of the enemy, he 
was repulsed in his turn,though superior in number.Rallying, 
however, and continuing the attack, he was wounded in an 
engagement on the 15th, where the courageous Austrian 
veteran charged at the head of the light troops of his army. 
This wound forced him to demand leave of absence, and he 
resided at Milan until December, when he re-assumed his 
former station in the blockading corps round Mantua. 

During the campaign of 1797 he displayed the same ac- 
tivity. On the 14th of January, at the head of a demi- 
brigade of light infantry, he advanced by Monte-Baldo, 
forced the Austrians, who occupied La Corona, routed 
them after a very obstinate resistance, and obliged their 
cavalry to cross the Adige by swimming; and he contri- 
buted not a little by his indefatigable vigilance to the sur- 
render of Mantua. Notwithstanding the astonishing cou- 
rage and frequent sorties of General Wurmser, this city 
was forced by famine and disease to open its gates to the 
French republicans, by a capitulation signed on the 2d of 
February the same year. The defence of this place, which 
excited the admiration of the enemy, and the praise of 



270 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Buonaparte himself, cost the Austrians 24,000 men; and 
22,000 Frenchmen perished in the ditFerent engagements 
during the siege and the blockades, of wliom 9000 are cal- 
culated by the author of the Campaigns in Italy of 179(5 
and 1797, to have been killed in fighting under Murat. 

After the reduction of Mantua, Buonaparte ordered some 
divisions of his army to invade the defenceless Papal ter- 
ritor}^ ; but upon the unexpected approach of the Arch- 
duke Charles towards Italy, with a small, but well-aftected 
and well-disciplined body of troops, the French Comman- 
der postponed his intention of dethroning the Sovereign 
Pontiff, whom he obliged, however, to sign a humiliating 
and ruinous peace. On the 24th of February, Murat was 
ordered to attack the enemy, strongly fortified near Foy ; 
where, after being repulsed twice, and having two horses 
killed under him, he finally succeeded ; though he on this 
occasion had more men killed, than the number of Aus- 
trians whom he combated and vanquished; but he, like 
most other republican generals, has justly been reprobated 
for the profusion with which they squandered away, often 
unnecessarily, the lives of their soldiers. Had he, after 
being repulsed once, waited half an hour only before he 
renewed the assault, according to the last quoted author, 
seven hundred Frenchmen less had perished on that day; 
as the Austrians were preparing to evacuate their entrench- 
ments when they were attacked a second and third time. 

Upon the determination of Buonaparte to penetrate in- 
to Carinthia, many petty skirmishes took place between 
the advanced posts of the Imperialists and the French un- 
der the Generals Murat, Belliard, and Killermann. The 
Archduke, already under the necessity of acting on the 
defensive, in continuing, however, to retreat, avoided as 
much as possible any serious engagements; and therefore 
in crossing the Taglimento cut down the bridges behind 
him, and threw up entrenchments, which extended from 
the passes of the mountains to the neighbourhood of Bel- 
;^rado. In this position the young prince halted for some 
days, determined to dispute the passage of that river, which, 
though naturally impetuous and rapid, might then be ford- 
ed, the stream being greatly diminished, in consequence 
of the severity of the frost in the mountainous regions. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 271 

Taking advantage of this fortunate circumstance, Buona- 
parte, on the Ifith of March, ordered Murat at the head 
of one division, and Duphot heading another, to cross the 
ford, so as to advance against the right of the enemy's en- 
trenchments, while the troops under General Gqieux exe- 
cuted the same operation in a dinerent quarter. Murat 
and Du pilot precipitated themselves nearly at the same 
time into the water, and gained the opposite bank, where 
the French infantry was repeatedly, but ineffectually, char- 
ged by the Austrian horse, ^w horn they received, without 
flinching, on the points of their bayonets ; but it was prin- 
cipally to the murderous fire of their artillery, that the 
republicans were indebted for this day's victory, as the 
cannon were stationed so as to shower down such terrible 
and incessant discharg.es of grape-shot on the foe, that all 
opposition soon became ineffectual. The Austrians, how- 
ever, still presented an undaunted front, fearless of danger 
and of death. But Murat and Guieux having penetrated 
to the village of Cainin, where the Archduke had establish- 
ed his head-quarters, they fell into some disorder, and re- 
treated towards the mountains. On the 19th, in pursuit of 
the vanquished enemy, Murat distinguished himself again 
at the passage of Lizonzo, where he had a horse killed un- 
der him, and his clothes pierced with bullets. 

After the preliminaries of Leoben had been signed, Buo- 
naparte, with his usual treacherous policy, overturned the 
Republic of Venice ; and while the definitive treaty was 
negotiating at Campo Formio, he first intrigued to change 
this form of government, and afterwards openly attacked 
the independant and neutral republic of the Grisons and of 
the Valteline. Murat was ordered by him in September, 
1797, to march with a column towards the frontiers of the 
Valteline, and to settle the difierences between these two 
States. After some previous plunder aiul requisitions, 
Murat published a declaiation, " That considering the 
many wrongs of the Grisons towards their ally, and the una» 
nimous desire of the citizens of the Valteline, this latter coun- 
try was incorporated with the Cisalpine Republic," Such, 
however, was the unanimity, that the very day, September 
f26, when this impertinent and false declaration appeared, 
this republican General ordered ^29, of the most respect- 
able citizens, who had formerly occupied places as magi^ 



ST2 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

irates, to be tried as conspirators, by military commission, 
for protesting against tliis union with the Cisalpine Repub- 
lic, and they were all shot the very next day. Such has 
been, and will always be, the conduct of revolutionary 
Frenchmen wherever they penetrate. Of the timid and 
cowardly they make slaves — of the traitors, friends — the 
patriots they butcher — the rich they pillage : plots gene- 
rally precede them — tyranny enters with them — ruin and 
wretchedneFs remain behind them ; and the curses or detes- 
tation of the good and the virtuous, of the religious and of 
the moralists, accompany them both under their triumphal 
arches and to their graves. 

In November, when Buonaparte left Italy, and accord- 
ing to the treaty of Campo Formio, a congress for the pa- 
cification, or rather partition, of the German Empire, was 
assembled at Rastadt, he went by way of Switzerland, 
where he sent Murat to prepare for his reception, and to 
gain information of the public spirit, previous to executing 
the plans of destruction which the Corsican had formed 
against this once prosperous Republic. This mission was 
delicate and difficult, because Buonaparte was disliked and 
suspected by the Swiss democrats, and despised, if not ab- 
horred by the aristocrats. Murat, however, by intimidating 
some by threats, deceiving others by specious promises, and 
buying over others with asmall part of the plunder of Italy, 
procured his Chief to be received with the same honours as 
are paid to Sovereigns. Deputations flattered, guns were 
fired, and cities illuminated; and the deluded Helvetians 
entertained, treated, feasted, complimented, and extolled 
u petty villain, to whom, from the scenes of horror that he 
had just left, their innocence, quiet, and happiness, were 
not only reproaches, but incitements so much the sooner 
to bury their independanceand riches in the rubbish of Italy 
and Germany. 

Murat was now so greatly advanced in the good graces 
of his commander, that when the latter chose his compa- 
nions for the invasion of Egypt, the province of another 
friendly autl neutral state, the former was the fourth upon 
the list of Generals which he presented, not to the appro- 
bation, but for the in for/nation of the directory. In Egypt 
he always attended Buonaparte, and generally dined with 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 27^ 

him every day. He was of the expedition into Syria in the 
spring of 1799, and commanded one division, consisting of 
the cavalry, during tiie memorable siege of St. Jean d'Acre, 
whilst the other four divisions of the French army were 
headed by Generals Kleber, Regnier, Lannes, and Bon. At; 
the battle of mount Tabor, on the 16th of April that year^ 
while Buonaparte was burning the Naplonsian village, and 
killing such of the inhabitants as he suspected of havino' 
appeared in arms against him, Murat chased the Turks 
from Jacob's bridge, and su-rprised the son of the Governor 
of Damascus. At the battle ofAboukir, on the 25th of 
July following, the light wing, consisting of 4000 cavalry, 
and nine battalions of infantry, with some artillery, was 
commanded by Murat, v/ho after their defeat, cut off the 
retreat of the Turks, who, according to General Berthier's 
report, stnick with a sudden terror at being surrounded on 
every side with death,precipitated themselves into the sea, where 
no less than ten thousand perished by musquetjy, grap€^ 
shotf and the leaves. 

In the next month, when Buonaparte unexpectedly and 
basely deserted the French army in Egypt, Murat was one 
of the four Generals whom he selected to accompany him 
in his flight. On this disgraceful subject General Dugua, 
at present a Consular Prefect, writes the following remarks, 
copied from his letter to the Director Barras : — " I shall 
say but little to you on the departure of the General ; it 
w^as only communicated to those who were to accompany 
him : \t was precipitate. The army was thirteen days icith- 
out a Commander-in-chief. There loas not a sous in any of 
the military chests ; no part of the service arranged ; the 
enemy, scarcely retired from Aboukir, was still before Da* 
mieta. I confess to you, Citizen Director, I could never 
have believed that General Buonaparte would have abaii^ 
doned us in the condition in which we were ; without money 
without powder, without ball., and many of the soldiers with- 
out arms. Debts to an enormous amount y juore than a third 
of the army destroyed by the plague, by the dysentery, by 
ophthalmia, and by the war ; that which remains almost 
naked, and the enemy but eight days march from us. What- 
ever may be told you at Paris, this description is but too 
true.'* Such are some of the particulars of the last infamous 

K k 



m REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH 

actions of Buonaparte, as a General-in-chief of the army in 
Egypt, and of which Murat shared the infamy. 

When the annihilation of that constitution was deter- 
mined upon, which Buonaparte had so often sworn to de- 
fend and obey, Murat, in the confidence of his friend, re- 
ceived, first, the command over the posts near the Coun- 
cil of Five Hundred ; and when the revolution was eftected 
which seated the usurper upon the throne of the Bourbons, 
the command over the Consular Guard. To bind more 
firmly those bands which united these two loorthies, Buo- 
naparte gave him in marriage his sister Caroline Buona- 
parte, who, in 1797, had been betrothed to General Du- 
phot, murdered in an insurrection provoked by Joseph 
Buonaparte at Rome, on the 27th of December that year. 
What' had become ofMurat*s former sans-culotte wife is 
not known for a certainty. In a pamphlet called " La 
Sainte Famille,'* it is said he had been divorced in 1795 ; 
and in another pamphlet, ** Lettre cCun gentilhomme Fran- 
cois a Vusurpaleur Corse" it is reported that she had died 
of hard drinking. 

In the spring of l800 an army of reserve was collecting 
near Dijon, under the command of General Berthier, and 
Murat was appointed one of his lieutenant-generals. After 
the negligence of General Melas had permitted this army 
to cross the Alps and to enter Italy, the Austrians were de- 
feated atMontebello on the lOlh of June, and the next day 
General Murat, who commanded the advanced guard, suc- 
ceeded in driving them across the Bormida. At the battle 
of Marengo on the 14th, he led on the cavalry, and, though 
at the onset completely routed, rallied again ; and when 
the valorous General Desaix took advantage of the imbe- 
cility of the Imperial General, he, with Generals Mar- 
mont and Bessieres, pierced the third and last line of# the 
Austrian infantry ; in consequence of which a defeat en- 
sued, and the horse infantry, fled promiscuously towards 
one of the bridges laid across the Bormida. But such was 
the undaunted courage of the Imperialists, deserving to be 
. headed by a more able chief, that the rear-guard presented 
a rcgular front, though Murat cut many of them to pieced 
in protecting valourously the retreat of the main body. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 275 

On his return to Paris in August, he found the scanda- 
lous boasting of his brother-in-law Lucien, concerning an 
ince'^.tuous intrigue carried on with Madame Miirat, the 
common topic of conversation. Three duels during two 
months were the consequence ; and had not the First Con- 
sul interfered, and for this and /or some other offences, re- 
moved Lucien from the Ministry to the Interior, and sent 
him in disgrace as Ambassador to Spain, Murat would ei- 
ther have been divorced from hisv/ife, perished himself, or 
killed his brother-in-law. ^Twelve months absence of Lu- 
cien, and even an apology on his arrival from Madrid, in 
1801, did not produce a reconciliation with Murat, who 
challenged, fought, and wounded him again. To put an 
end to these family quarrels, Napoleoiie Buonaparte pro- 
moted Murat to the command in chief over the French 
army in Italy, or,which is the same, made him Viceroy over 
the Italian and Ligurian Republics,and over the revolutiona- 
r}^ kingdom of Etruria. His wife accompanied him ; and 
when he was last December recalled to Paris, Lucien was 
first sent off to plot at Naples,and afterwards ordered to visit 
his senatories on the Rhine, and to travel in Germany, so 
discordant is yet the fraternity, between these two brother 
Septembrizers, of whoni may be trul)^ said ; 

II faut rendre justice a Pun et I'autre membra, 
lis ont ete parfaits les deux et trois Septembre, 

During Murat's reign in Italy, his manner of living was 
more expensive and more sumptuous, his retinue more 
brilliant, his staff more showy, his palaces were more 
magnificent, and his guards more numerous, than those of 
any lawful European Sovereign, and hardly surpassed by 
the Corsican usurper at Paris. He introduced at Milan 
nearly the same etiquette that prevailed at the Thuilleries 
and at St. Cloud. Madame Murat had her maids of ho- 
nour, her routes, her assemblies, her petit aud grand entree, 
her petits souptrs, and her ^rand circles ; as lier husband 
had his pages, his prefects of palace, his aids-du-camp, his 
military reviews,his diplomatic audiences, his presentations, 
his official dinners, his sallies of humour against foreign 
Ministers, and his smiles of complaisance to his minions ; 
with all the other farago of the pedantic, insolent, affected. 



276 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

but revolutionary liaut ton, introduced by the upstart and 
foreign tyrant of the French Republic. 

After Buonaparte's second visit to the army on the Coast, 
t\here his Admirals as well as his Generals tried to con- 
vince him of the danger, if not the absurdity, of attempt- 
ing an invasion with his flotilla, which two or three of our 
small craft kept blocked up; to occupy the public atten- 
ticn and to divert the discontent which dela}^ or disap- 
pointment must excite among his soldiers, who had alrea- 
dy been ten months devouring the riches of Great Britain, 
and regarding her conquest as easy and certain, a plot was 
necessary to be invented. The treachery of the spy Mehee, 
and the impudence and indiscretion of others, unfortunate^ 
\y procured him documents enough to cause his French 
slaves to think it not only probable but certain. If all oc- 
currences during last winter are remembered, and if the 
changes and promotions, and every thing else which has 
been known of his internal as well as external policy, be 
considered, little doubt remains but that the arrest and 
disgrace of Moreau, the death of the Duke of Enghien, 
and the publication of the pretended conspiracy in Febru- 
ary 1804, hud been determined upon in December ISOo. 
In that month Moreau's base enem}^ Jourdan, was nomi- 
nated Commander-in-Chief in Italy, and his impertinent 
and cowardly calumniator, Junot, Commander-in-Chief 
over the corps d' Elite of the Army of England : Louis Buo- 
naparte received a command in the Camp on the Coast ; 
Joseph Buonaparte was sent to Brabant, and Murat recal- 
led from Italy to be the Governor of Paris, and Conmiand? 
fLr i)i' the Army of the Interior, 

I'll this post Murat continues the same pageantry, osten- 
tation, profusion, and pomp, as in that be had resigned in 
Italy; which evinces that he is certain of no resistance in 
the execution of the revengeful, political, or ambitious 
schemes of his brother-in-law the First Consul ; but that 
Frenchmen WMJI see with the same indiflerence, or sile/it 
indignation, the condemnation of Moreau, as they did th<f 
t>arbarous murder of the Duke Enghien. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 277 

General Murat was the person who had the command of the 
murder of the Duke of Enghien, we deem the particulars 
of that horrid act to be worthy of perusal. 

MURDER OF THE DUKE OF ENGHIEN". 

On the 15th of March 1804, the armed banditti of the 
Corsican usurper violated the independanceof the German 
empire, by forcing the Duke Enghien from Ettenhein 
■where he had resided for some time ; they carried him the 
same day to Strasburg where he remained shut up in the 
citadel until the 17th; when orders were received by the 
telegraph from Paris, that he should be immediately car- 
ried to that city, a distance of near 400 miles» He travel- 
led day and night, and was escorted from relay to relay, 
by the gens d'armes, a corps of French thief-takers, spies, 
and informers. He was chained hand and foot the whole 
way. At six o'clock in the morning of the 20th he arrived 
at Paris, where he was first carried to the Temple, as if it 
were only to shew him a prison in which so many of his 
royal relatives had suffered, and which they had left only 
to perish ; and after vizards to the castle of Vincennes, where, 
by the orders of Buonaparte, a mock tribunal, under the 
appellation of a Special Military Commission, had been 
convened. At nine o'clock in the forenoon, though almost 
fainting, from want of nourishment, and almost asleep 
from want of rest, he w^as carried before the assassins, mem- 
bers of this military commission, who, at eleven o'clock, 
barbarously passed the following sentence : 

SPECIAL MILITARY COMMISSION, 

Formed in the First Military Division by virtue of a Decree 
of Government dated the 19th March, I2th year of the 
Uepublic, one and indivisible, 

JUDGMENT, 

In the name of the French People This day, 20th 

March, 12th year of the Republic : 

The Special Military Commission, formed in the first 
military division, by virtue of a decree of Government of 



278 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

the date of the 19th March, 12th year, composed accow]- 
ing to the law of the oth September, year a, of seven 
members, that is to say : 

Citizens Hulin, General of Brigade, Commander of the 
fort grenadier guards, President; Guiton, Colonel, Com- 
mander of the 1st regiment of Cuirassiers; Bazancourt, 
Colonel, Commander of the 4th regiment of light infan-* 
try. 

Ravier, Colonel, Commander of the 18th regiment of 
the infantry of the line. 

Barrois, Colonel, Commander of the 96th regiment of 
ditto. 

Rabbe, Colonel, Commander of the 2d regiment of the 
municipal guard of Paris. 

D'Autencourt, Captain Major of the gens-d'armerie 
d'elite, performing the functions of Captain Reporter. 

Molin, Captain in the 18th Regiment of infantry of the 
line. Register: all appointed by the General in Chief, Mu- 
rat. Governor of Paris, and commanding the first military 
division; which president, members, reporter, and regis- 
ter, are neither related nor allied (o each other, or the ac- 
cused, within the degree prohibited by the law. 

The Commission convened by order of the General ii] 
Chief, Governor of Paris, met in the castle of Vincennes, 
in the apartment of the Commander of the place, for the 
purpose of trying Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duke 
D'Enghien, born at Chantilly upon the 2d of August, 
1772, about 5 feet six inches high, fair hair and eye-brows, 
oval face, long, well made, grey eyes inclining to brown, 
small mouth, aquiline nose, the chin a little pointed, anc| 
well turned. 

Accused, 1st, of having carried arms against the French 
Republic; 2d, of having olVered iiis services to the English 
Government, the enemy of the French people ; 3d, of hay- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. stQf 

ing received and accredited agents of the said Government 
— of having procured for tbem the means of maintaining 
an understanding in France, and having conspired v^-ith 
them against the internal and external safety of the State ; 
4th, of having placed himself at the head of an assemblage 
of French emigrants, and others in the pay of England, 
formed in the countries of Fribourg and Baden ; 5th, of 
having maintained a correspondence in the tovvn of Stras- 
burgh, tending to stir up the neighbouring departments, 
for the purpose of effecting there a diversion in iavour of 
England ; (5th, of being one of the favourers and accom- 
plices of the conspiracy planned by the English against the 
life of the First Consul, and intending, in case of the suc- 
cess of that conspiracy, to enter France. 

The Sitting having been opened, the President ordered 
the Reporter to read all the documents ; as well those in 
the charge as those in the defence. 

The papers having been read, the President ordered the 
guard to bring in the accused, who was introduced free, 
and without irons, before the Commission. 

Being interrogated as to his christian andsur-names, age, 
place of birth, and residence: 

He answered, Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duke 
of Enghien, asjed 32 years, born at Cliantilly, near Paris, 
having quitted France on the 10th July, 17Sy. 

After having interrogated the accused through the me- 
dium of the President, with respect lo every part of the 
contents of the charge against him : having heard the Re- 
porter in his report and in his conclusions, and the Accus- 
ed ill his means of defence ; after the latter had declared 
that he had nothing to add in his justification, the Presi- 
dent demanded of the members, whether they had any ob- 
:iervation to make. Upon their answer in the negative, 
and before he put it to the vote, he ordered the accused to 
withdraw. The accused was then conducted back to pri- 
son by his escort : and the Reporter, the Register, as also 



1 



280 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

the citizens who attended as auditors, retired at the desire 
of the President. 

The Commission having deliberated in private, the Pre- 
sident put tlie following questions : 

Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien, 
accused, 

1st, Of having carried arms against the French Republic 
— Is he guilty ? 

2d, Of having offered his services to the English Govern- 
ment, the enemy of the French People — Is he guilty ? 

3d, Of having received and accredited about him agents 
of the said English Government ; of having procured for 
them the means of keeping up an understanding in France ; 
of having conspired with them against the internal and ex- 
ternal safety of the State — Is he guilty ? 

4th, Of having put himself at the head of a body of 
French emigrants and others, in the pay of England, form- 
ed, upon the frontiers of France in the countries of Fri- 
bourg and Baden — Is he guilty ? 

5th, Of having kept up a correspondence in Strasburgh, 
tending to procure a rising of the neighbouring depart- 
ments, to effect there a diversion favourable to England — 
Is he guilty ? 

6th, Of having been one of the favourers and accomp- 
lices of the conspiracy framed by the English against the 
life of the First Consul ; and intending in case of the sue 
cess of that conspiracy, to enter France— Is he guilty ? 

The voices being received separately upon each of the 
above questions, beginning with the junior in rank, the 
President giving his opinion the last; 

The Commission declares Louis Antoine Henri de Bour- 
bon, Duke of Enghien — 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. ^sl 

1st, Unanimously, guilty of having carried arms against 
the French Republic. 

2dly, Uftf^imouslVi guilty of having offered his services 
to the Ei,ovisU Government, the enemy of the French 
Peo-ple. 

3dly, Unanimously, guilty of having received and ac- 
credited about him agents of the said English Government, 
of having procured them the* means of keeping up an un- 
derstanding in France, and of having conspired v^^ith them 
against the external and internal safety of the State. 

4thly, Unanimously, guilty of putting himself at the 
head of a body of French emigrants and others, in the pay 
of England, formed upon the frontiers of France, in the 
countries of Fribourg and of Baden. 

5thly, Unanimously, guilty of having kept up a corres- 
pondence in Strasburg, tending to stir up the neighbouring 
departments to eft'ect there a diversion favourable to Eng- 
land. 

Gthly, Unanimously, guilty of being one of the favour-* 
ers and accomplices of the conspiracy planned by the Eng- 
lish against the life of the First Consul ; and intending, in 
case of the success of that conspiracy, to enter France. 

Upon this the President put the question relative to the 
application of the punishment. The voices were received 
again in the form above mentioned. 

The Special Military Commission condemns, unanim- 
ously, to the pain of death, Louis Antoine Henri de Bour- 
bon, Duke of Enghien, in satisfaction of the crimes of 
being a spy, of carrying on a correspondence with the ene- 
mies of the Republic, and of an attempt against the inter- 
nal and external safety of the State. 

The said sentence is pronounced in conformity with ar^ 
tide ii. title iv. of the military code of crimes and punish- 
ments of ihe 12th November, year 5 ; 1st and 2d section of 

L 1 



2S€ REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

the first title of the ordinary penal code of the 6th of Octo- 
ber 17yi, thus expressed, viz. 

2. Of the 12th November, year 5, " Every '^'-^son what- 
ever may be his state, quality, or profession, jnvicted of 
being a spy for the enemy, shall be punished with death.'* 

Art. 1. Every conspiracy and attempt against the Re- 
public shall be punished with death. 

2. (Of the 9th of October 1791,) Every conspiracy and 
plot tending to disturb the State by a civil war, by arming 
the citizens against each other, or against the exercise of 
the lawful authority, shall be punished with death. 

Orders the Captain Reporter to read the sentence, in 
presence of the guard assembled under arms^ to the con- 
demned. 

Orders that there shall be sent within the time prescrib- 
ed by the law, due diligence being used by the President 
and the Reporter, a copy to the Minister at War and the 
Grand Judge, the Minister of Justice, and the General in 
Chief, Governor of Paris. 

Done, concluded, and judged, without separating, the 
3:^id month, day, and year, in public sitting ; and the mem- 
bers of the Special Military Commission have signed, with 
the Reporter and Register, the minute of the judgment. 

Signed — Guiton, Bazaxcourt, Ravier, 
Barrois, Rabbe, d'Autencourt, 
Captain Reporter, Molin, Captain 
Register, and Hulin, President, 

In this mock trial, accusations as ridiculous as groundless 
are presented, but no evidence is produced; which proves 
the truth of the Duke's assertion, when before the tribunal 
of his murderers, that his senteiice was pronounced before 
he had left Strashurgh ; that he was only the innocent victim, 
of the ferocious Buonaparfs rage against the Bourbons. 
Should other Sovereigns not avenge this atrocious crime, 
they or their children must sooner or later share the fate 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. Qgs 

of the Duke afEnghien ; because, whatever rank Buona- 
parte assumes, he is unable to change his birth ; and guilty 
as he is, he will consider every good prince, as much a cen- 
suring enemy as a proud superior, with whom neither an 
Imperial crown, however brilliant, nor enterprizes, how- 
ever successful, can make him even an equal. He knows 
that he is despised and detested by all hereditary Sover- 
eigns ; and his dark, barbarous, and revengeful soul will 
never cease to plan subversions, or to commit or command 
murders, until the grave of ttie last lawful prince is inun- 
xlated with the blood of the last loyal subject. 

The Dukeof Enghien shewed himself a worthy descen- 
dant of the Cond6s,even in the den where he was surrounded 
by the hired assassins ofthe usurper of his family's throne.His 
fn'mness was as great during his trial, as his resignation af- 
ter being condemned, and would have moved even revolu- 
tionary brigands, had not Buonaparte, from all his ruftian 
accomplices, procured the most wicked to dispatch a Bour- 
bon. His Highnesses calmness and courage on this trying 
occasion were the more surprizing, as during the five pre- 
ceding days and nights, every indignity had been offered 
him that could irritate his mind, and he had indured every 
suffering that could enervate his body. From the time of 
his arrest, bread and water had been his only nourishment 
— he had never been once permitted to lie down on abed, 
to undress, to shave, or to change his linen. From the 
weight of his fetters, and from the fatigue of a long jour- 
ne}^ his feet and legs were so swollen that he could hardly 
stand. For the fourteen hours that he lived after condem- 
nation, he was shut up with four gens«d'armes d'elite, or 
chosen spies, in the dungeon at Vincennes, without a bed, 
and even without a chair. In a corner only was some rot- 
ten straw, on which he sat down ; but he was prevented 
from a moment's lest by the noise, questions, and cannibal 
songs, of these satellites, who had orders to prevent even 
his slumbers. 

From the moment of his arrest he ^vas not allowed ei- 
ther clean linen, a comb, or a razor. After his sentence, 
be asked three favours of his murderers, two of which were 
partly granted ; the first was, to be allowed a priest to at- 
tend him in his lust moments, this was permitted for an 



f84 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

hour ; the next was, that a lock of his hair might be sent 
to a lady whom he named ; and the last, that he himself 
might give the signal when the soldiers were to fire at him, 
this was positively refused. The clock in the great tower 
of Vincennes had just struck two, when the drum beat to 
arms, as a signal for execution ; and the dismal procession 
began to move in solemn silence from the castle to the 
park.* A company of grenadiers marched first, then came 
the guiltless prisoner, faint, languid, and exhausted with 
fatigue, supported by two soldiers, his hair dishevelled, and 
his person dirty; near him were the officers of the guard, 
and another company of grenadiers behind. The night 
was still,, dark, and heavy, forming a frightful contrast 
to the blaze of above sixty torches which lighted these 
midnight murderers to their horrid task. When they had 
arrived at the fatal spot, near the great oak of St. Louis, the 
3'outhful hero seemed for a moment lo recover all his 
strength and spirit, he entreated that they might not bind 
his eyes ; and when he heard the language of his assassins, 
for they were Italians, he ejave God thanks that he was not 
to be murdered by his countrym.en, and having pronounced 
these emphatic words, '* O God save my king, and deliver 
my country from the yoke of a foreigner," the fatal signal 
was given, they fired, and in an instant he was pierced 
through with balls, and fell lifeless to the ground. Thus 
ended a race of heroes, illustrious for their virtues and 
their valor ; and thus the last branch of a noble tree being 
cut off, the aged trunk was left to perish, without support 
or shelter. 

Bofore day-light in the morning of the 21st, General 
Murat, under (.scort of Mamelukes, arrived at Vincennes ; 
he was accompanied by four aids-de-cam p,and Generals Ed- 
ward Mortier, Duroc, Hulin, and Louis Buonaparte, who 
had come on purpose from the coast. Each Mameluke 
held a flambeau ; and Italian troops and gens-d'armes 
surrounding the castle, prevented the approach of every 
one, and guarded all the avenues to that part of the wood 
of Vincennes appointed as the place of execution. The 

* This account of his execution we have taken from a wit- 
ness of tlie horrid scene,its correctness-withlhe author's accouut 
iq this >vork bears marks of authenticity. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. *>83 

Duke being told that his sentence was to be executed, said 
calmly, " 1 am ready and resigned 1" 

Ce malheureux heros, sans armes, sans defense^ 
Voyantcju^il faut perir, et perir sans vengeance, 
Voulut mourir, du moins, comma ii a"vait vecu, 

Avec tonic sa gloire et ioutd sa vcrtu. voltaire. 

When his Highness heard, upon inquiry, that the grena* 
diers commanded to shoot >him were Italians of Buona- 
parte's guard, he said, *' Thank God ! they are not French* 
men — I am condemned by a foreigner, and God be praised 
that my executioners are also foreigners — it will be a stairi 
less upon my countrymen! At the place of execution he 
lifted his hands towards heaven, exclaiming, " May God 
preserve my King, and deliver my country from the yoke of 
the foreigner !'' Two gens-d'armes then proposed to tie an 
handkerchief over his eyes ; but he said, " A loyal soldier, 
who has so often been exposed to fire and sword, can see 
the approach of death with naked eyes and without fear. 
He then looked at the grenadiers, who had already pointed 
their fusils at him, saying, " Grenadiers ! lower your arms, 
otherwise you will miss me, or only wound me !" Of the 
nine grenadiers who fired at him, seven hit him : two pier- 
ced his head, and five his body. Immediately after his 
murder General Murat sent his aid-de camp to Buonaparte 
5it Malmaison. A small cofFm, filled with lime, was ready 
to receive his corpse, and a grave had been dug in the gar- 
den of the castle, where he was buried. 

Such was the end of the Duke of Enghien, inhumanly 
butchered in the 32d year of his age, by the barbarous fo- 
reign usurper of the throne of his family : a prince, who 
would have illustrated obscurity by his talents, but who 
often forgot his rank, when the misery of others made it ne^ 
cessary to descend to that of an individual ; whose human- 
ity preserved the lives of thousands of republicans van- 
quished by his valour, and whose generosity relieved those 
of them in an enemy's country, who were destitute, in pri- 
sons or suffering on a sick bed ;— they all found in him a 
second providence. 



286 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

In Les Nouvelles a la Mairiy Fructidor 20th, year 12, o? 
Septembers, 1804, pages 9 and 10, is related, as a known 
fact at Paris, " that Madame Buonaparte implored her fe- 
rocious husband, upon her knees, * to spare the hfeof the 
Duke of Enghein, tu whose father and graiidfather herself 
and her family owed the greatest obligation, for their pro- 
tection and generosity during monarchy.' Napoleone let 
her repeat her request several tunes, while he was march- 
ing, much agitated, backwards and forwards in the small 
saloon at Malmaison, without paying attention to what she 
said. At last, her patience being tired, she threw herself, 
at his feet, crying ' Pardon ! Pardon !' He then regarded 
her with tiie most terrible look, which terrified her so much, 
that she fainted away, and was carried senseless out of the 
room. In this state of insensibility she remained near three 
hours, and at her recovery, INIadame Remusat, her lady in 
waiting, presented her a letter from her husband, full of 
reproaches for her impolitic and unscasamihle interference, 
when it v/as a question about un grand coup d'etat, which 
surpassed her comprehension. He declared, at the same 
time, that both his and her life and rank depended upon 
the removal of the Duke of Enghien, more than even upon 
that of the Duke of Augouleme, because the former had 
■many frie^ids in the French armi/y where the latter was 
hardly known. * That we, besides," added Buonaparte, 
' have more to apprehend from his enterprising character 
than from that of any other Bourbon, the following letter 
may convince you ;* 

TO HIS MOST CHRISTIAN MAJESTY LOUIS XVII. KING 
OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE. 

" SIRE, 

" The letter of the Qd IVIarch, with which your majesty 
has vouchsafed to honour me, reached in due time. Your 
Majesty is too well acquainted with the blood which flows 
in my veins, to have entertained a moment's doubt respect- 
ing the tenor and spirit of the answer which your Majesty 
calls for. I am a Frenchman, Sire, and a Frenchman /a?7/N 
ful to his God, to his King, and of course to the oaths that 
are binding to his honour as much as by his religion. Many 
others may, perhaps one day envy this triple advantage. Will 
your Majesty, therefore, vouchsafe to permit rue to annex 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. osi 

H>y signature to that of the Duke of Au^ouleme, adhering, 
as I do, with him in heart and soul, to the contents of the 
note of my Sovereign ? It is in these invofi^iable sentiments, 
that I remain. Sire, 

" Your Majesty's most humble, 

" most obedient, 

** and veyfdilhful subject and servant, 

" (Signed) LOUIS a?itoine henry de bourbon. 

" Ettenheim, in the Dominions of the Margrave 
'' of Baden, March 22d, 1803." 

This letter was written in consequence of the humilia- 
ting proposal made by the Prussian President, Meyer, at 
Warsaw, in February 1803, in the name of one legitimate 
king upon his throne, to another legitimate king in 
exile, of resigning his hereditary right to the throne of 
France to the foreign adventurer, the svi'orn and natural 
enemy to all hereditary sovereignty, who had usurped it 
by force and fraud, and pree .ved his usurpation by the im- 
punity that he held out to regicide, and by the national 
plunder with which he rewarded his criminal accomplices, 
those who had butchered with him in Europe and poisoned 
with him in Africa and Asia. 

In his person the Duke of Enghein was handsome, and 
of a noble and a graceful figure. The sound ofhisvoicf^ 
was harmonious, and his expression correct and natural. In 
his manners he was condscending,in his conversation lively, 
but becoming. Ever master of himself, his temper w^as al- 
ways equal and moderate. He was frequently so polite and 
obliging, that it might have been taken for familiarity, but 
that air of dignity which never left him, which w^as born 
with him, and which followed him to the grave. From 
his youth he was an enemy to idleness, and fond of those 
exercises which contribute to strengthen the constitution, 
and to accustom a person intended for a military life to the 
tatigues of war. Fencing and hunting were often hia 
amusements before he headed batallions or commanded 
armies. His courage and capacity were known before they 
were tried. Nature, as well as education, had made him a 
general. His brilliant quallities during the first campaign 



^a REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

made him distinguished even in the midst of so many he- 
roes of his family. Faithful to the noble principles of his 
ancestors ; convinced, with them, that a good general may 
be defeated, but cannot be taken by surprize, he was de- 
termined never to be attacked unprepared. He was there- 
fore always sober, active and vigilant ; hearing all reports, 
receiving all advices, and attentive even to rumours that 
were circulated in his camp. He never ceased to observe 
his enemy, aiid to meditate on their lesser movements, ei- 
ther to discover or to prevent their projects ; either to turn 
them against themselves, or to render them of no use by. 
his defence. Fully aware of that dangerous confidence, 
which want of rest after long fatigues is often inclined to 
give, he depended only upon himself to reconnoitre the 
ground, to estabhsh posts, and to fix the place of rendez- 
vous in case of sudden attacks. Constantly the first every 
where, every part of the service equally fixed his attention, 
particularly what could in any way contribute to the com- 
forts, or relieve the pains of his soldiers. Though severe 
with others as with himself, he was always liberal, just, and 
good, with those who served under him, and therefore soon 
became their idol. A competent judge of military as well 
asof all othei' kinds of merit, the Archduke Charles on all 
occasions extolled his Highness's talent ; admired his cou- 
rage ; desired and obtained his friendship; and now deplores 
his untimely loss. If Campagny, the consular emissary at 
Vienna, has reported what he has heard and seen in that 
capital, the usurper is informed, that England, Russia, and 
Poland, are not ihe only countries where loyalty mourns, 
and where virtue abhors, Buonaparte's atrocities. To the 
honour of the British nation, the feelings were the same, 
and unanimous among all classes of people; and the wan- 
ton murder of the Duke of Enghien has made Bounaparte 
execrated even by those who hitherto had doubted, pallia- 
ted, or disbelieved, his former enormous crimes. 

The motives which impelled Buonaparte to this horrid 
deed it is not easy to penetrate: he could hardly expect 
to destroy the whole race of the Bourbons while so many 
of them remain in different countries ; and without this, 
the death of one was useless : the most probable motive 
•items to be that of striking a panic into the rest, and deter 
ring their adheients frona any other further attempts upou 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. S8^ 

his life: possibly he might think also, that after removing 
those nearest the throne the people would not be so much 
interested for the remainder ; but on the other hand, had 
he weighed the matter deliberately, he must have found 
that he was likely to raise himself many powerful enemies 
among those who were either neuter or his friends, by stri- 
king at so great an object : lesser men might have passed 
unnoticed, and been murdered vvith impunity, but when 
men of exalted rank are put to death, they excite a degree 
of interest in their fate among those both above and below 
them, which seldom attaches to meaner objects, and find 
avengers in all ranks, independant of their moral or politi- 
cal worth. Buonaparte therefore reasoned ill, if he thought 
he was adding to his security by the murder of so illustri^ 
ous a sufferer; for those sovereigns who have perhaps look- 
ed with indifference on the most flagrant violation of the 
laws of nations, and the rights of individuals, will probably 
be roused to vengeance by the cruelty ?.nd injustice exer- 
cised against one of their own rank or their own family. 

The sensation which this atrocious murder, and the more 
secret destruction of Pichegru, occasioned in Paris, may be 
guessed at by the followmg paper, pasted on the walls by 
the order of General Murat : — 

" The governor of PariR recommends to all the officers 
of the garrison and the national guard, whenever they shall 
have an opportunity, to enlighten the citizens on the sub- 
ject of tnany false reports which the ill disposed have en- 
deavoured to circulate : they have omitted nothing in 
their power to spread alann ; sometimes they publish that 
the death of Pichegru was not the result of suicide; and 
sometimes they dare to affirm that numbers of suspected 
persons are shot every night. The citizens of Paris ought 
to know thai military justice, any more than civil justice, 
cannot be executed without public formality ; and that 
no guilty person has been condemned by the military 
tribunals without his sentence being printed and publicly 
pasted up. The arrests which have taken place, since that 
of General Moreau, all tend to prove his guilt. Ducorps^ 
one of the brigands, mentioned in the list published by the 

M m 



290 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

Grand Judge, has been taken at Chartres. To this moment 
all that the Grand Judge has asserted, and nothing but 
what he has asserted, is true. Although the governor well 
knows that idle reports do not occupy the attention of the 
citizens of Paris, yet he thinks it requisite to recommend 
to the officers of the national guard who are dispersed in 
different parts of the city, not to suffer the public opinion 
to diverge; that of all classes of the people is essentially 
connected with the confidence and affection which the 
First Consul has a right to expect from Frenchmen. 

(Signed) MURAT." 

Murat has 150,000 livres (60001.) in the month for ap- 
pointments, as the Governor of Paris, besides hotels fur- 
iiished at the expence of the Republic for himself, his 
wife, and his aids-de-camp. 30,000 livres (12501.) are al- 
lowed him for the open table that he keeps for officers on 
busines, or on leave of absence in the capital ; and ac- 
cording to a French publication, when Buonaparte assumes 
the Imperial diadem ; he is to be declared a Marshal of 
France, or rather of the Empire of the Gauls, a place for- 
merly occupied by Princes of the House of Bourbon. In 
landed property in France and Italy he has laid out seven 
millions of livres, and his wife's diamonds are valued at 
four millions. 

The painful and disgusting task which the author's loy- 
alty has imposed upon him in delineating this man's life^ 
as well as those of many of his accomplices, is mixed with 
the satisfaction, that future ages will not be ignorant of the 
infamous means to which they owe ther notoriety, their 
rank,wiid riches ; and this may probably prevent other am- 
bitious individuals, if they are not entirely deprived of all 
honcnrable or luoral principles, from attempting to gain 
advai:cer;ient and obtain affluence in following their foot- 
steps, by rirnembering that neither an Imperial sceptre, 
nor the braff^ of Constable, have been able to silence the 
virtuous D'dgnation of contemporary writers, from whose 
evidence t'l'.y must expect to be judged by an impartial 
posterity. 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. Q91 

There is something romantic in most of these revolution- 
ary lives: had Murat been a good actor, he probably would 
have figured no where but upon the stage. The hisses 
which his incapacity as a comedian provoked, changed the 
scene ; and he is become not an indifferent tragedian upon 
the great political and military theatre of modern Europe, 



^99 



HER I,MPERIAL HIGHNESS 

ANNUN. CAROLINE BUONAPARTE, 

PRINCESS (CI-DEVANT MADAME) MURAT. 



Sous son legne indolent, bientot tout va changer ; 
Le bien s'y fait sans gloire et le mal sans danger. 

"When, in December 1797 the honest man of the Corsi' 
can famihj^ Joseph Buonaparte, had intergrity and loyalty 
enough to cause General Duphot to be murdered, in order 
to furnish a pretext for the pillage of Rome, and for the 
subversion of the Papal Government, his sister, the present 
Madame Murat, was betrothed to this general, then one of 
the most frantic jacobins, and the confidential friend of 
Napoleon e. 

Madame Murat had been an apprentice to the mantua- 
jnaker Madame Rambaud at Marseilles, as v^^ell as her 
sister the Princess Santa Cruce; but, in 1794, she left that 
city with anactorfrom Paris, Baptist, who, not being able 
to provide for her wants, recommended her to a mantua- 
maker in the Rlie de Montmatre. She had by this actor 
two children, of whom one is yet alive, and educated by 
the father, formerly an intimate friend of Napoleone. 

In ISOO the First Consul presented the hand of this his 
modest sister to the virtuous General Murat, who had ac- 
companied him to Egypt, deserted with him from Egypt, 
assisted him to dethrone his benefactors the Directors, and 
commanded his guard when a consul. 

During Buonaparte's campaign in Egypt, the Scanda- 
lous Chronicle of Paris said, that the present Madame 
Murat cohabited with her brother Lucien, and had a child 
by him; and as the depraved Lucien had himself publicly 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 



203 



boasted of this infamy, he has been three times challenged 
by General Murat, and twice wounded by him, without 
disavowing or apologizing for his crime. 

Madame Murat is vanity and affectation itself. All rebels 
of all countries are her heroes ; and a republic her wishes 
during the day, and her dreams in the night. Liberty is 
in her mouth, equality in her heart, and fraternity on her 
garters. A cup of liberty decorates her hotel, and a tree 
of liberty her court-yard. ^In her drawing-room are the 
busts of Gracchus, Brutus, Cato, Brissot, Marat, and Ro- 
bespierre. In her bed- room, those of Machiavel, Cromwell, 
and Napoleone. While talking of liberty and equality, 
however, she is a despot in her house; she is arrogant 
with her friends, overbearing with her companions, and a 
tyrant over her lovers. In her dress, and manners, and 
pretensions : she is an aristocrat, and often a successful rivaf 
to her sister-in-law Madame Napoleone. 

To prevent the probably fatal consequences of the jeal- 
ousy of General Murat against his brother-in-law Lucien, 
Napoleone sent Madame Murat to reside with her husband 
at Milan ; where, notwithstanding the great honours shewn 
her by the Italians, she regretted Paris, and considered 
herself, as she wrote to the First Consul, " as transported 
to the European Cayenne,'^ and therefore tormented him 
with her letters until he recalled her, " to her dear, dear 
Paris.'* As General Murat does not inspect his wife's con- 
duct so much as formerly, many think indiffernce has suc- 
ceeded to jealousy, and that he properly appreciates the 
real value of her precious person and honourable sentiments. 
Her suitors are now very numerous ; g.nd in their number 
the most ridiculous of all is the old debauched senator 
Roederer, who, according to Les Nouvelles a la Main, by 
turns, sighs and laughs, sings and cries, writes love letters, 
and prints tender or flattering verses. 

In his Journal de Paris of the 31st of October 1803, 
Roederer, in despair, wiote the following quatrain, ado reu- 
sed to her husband, — 



^4 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

VERS ADDRESSES AU GENERAL MURAT. 

Adore Caroline, f et regne surson coeur ; 
JL'A?nour avec orgueil peut dire a la victoire;, 
v<jfr . .* Qu'ilsur faire pour ton bonhnir 

Autant qu'elle fit pour ta gloire. 

Princess Louis having a knowledge of the intrigues of 
Madame Murat, she let her know that she was not igno- 
rant of them, by the following circumstance. General 
Murat being at Paris, and his lady on a visit with Louis, 
the bed-rooms of the two sisters were on the same floor ; 
One night Princess Louis thought she heard the foot-steps 
of a person on the stair-case, not like those of a female, 
and afterwards, the door of Madame Murat's bed-room 
opened softly. This occurrence deprived her of all desire to 
sleep ; and curiosity, or perhaps revenge excited her to re- 
move all doubts concerning the virtue of her sister. 

In about an hour afterwards, she stole into Madame 
Murat's bed-room, by the way of their sitting-room, the 
door of the passage being bolted. Passing her hand over 
the pillow, she almost pricked herself with the strong 
beard of a man, and screamed out, awoke her sister, who 
inquired what she wanted at such an hour. " I believe," 
replied the princess" my room is haunted, I have not shut 
my eyes, and intended to ask for a place by your side, but 
I find it is already engaged.'- f* My maid always sleeps 
with me, when my husband is absent," said Madame Mu- 
rat. It is very rude of your maid to ^o to bed with her 
mistress, without first shaving herself," said the Princess 
and left the room. The next morning an explanation took 
place, the ladies understood each other, and each during 
the remaining part of their husbands' absence had for con- 
solation a MAID for a bed fellow. 

*' As long as my sister Josephine remains undisturbed 
upon the throne of the French empire, she has no reason 
to complain either of intrusion or usurpation, of vanity, or 
audacity, if I am determined not to endure any rival upon 
the throne of fashion, or permit anybody else to seize the 
light reins of my fickle dominions." Such was the contents 

f Carolina is the name of Madame Murat. 



THE BOUNAPARTE FAMILr; §95 

of the oiTicial note delivered by the maid of honour, Ma- 
dame La Grange, in the name of hef mistress, her Imperial 
Highness Princess Murat, to Madame Remusat, a lady in 
waiting of the Empress of the French, in answer to the fol- 
lowing official message: " With equal surprize and indig- 
nation, Madame and my sister, have 1 heard of your vain, 
audacious, and mutinous conduct, in daring to usurp the 
power belonging to me exclusively, of regulating the 
fashions of my empire. I am told that you are conspiring 
night and day with certain milliners and mantua-makers, 
to overthrow in an hour what has cost myself and the mem- 
bers of my privy council weeks and months* deliberations 
and industry to determine and conceive ; and that then 
the bonnets a la Josephine^ the corsets a VImperatrice, the 
gowns a la Souveraine, and the shoes a la Pageriey have 
suddenly disappeared to give place to those unbecoming 
and ridiculous hats a VAltesse, petticoats a la Caroline^ 
veils a I'Animnciade, and slippers a In Murat. I am your 
50"vereign — you are my subject : I command you, therefore, 
under pain of ray displeasure, to cease your impertinenti 
intrusion. 

(Signed) " Josephine. Empress." 

No sooner had the Empress read the official note of 
Princess Murat, than the natural crimson which so seldom 
colours her Majesty's cheeks, faded the lustre even of her 
most brilliant artificial rouge; the beating of her pulse 
almost surpassed the palpitation of her Imperial heart. Dr. 
Hj1!6, her physician, and Yvan, her surgeon, were sent 
for by Madame Duchated, her lady in waiting, who how- 
ever, mistook her sovereign's situation : she required not 
the assistance of the faculty, but the advice of her council 
of state. All its members, consisting of her ladies in v/ait- 
ing and her maids of honour, were convoked ; her Majesty 
presided, and her iavourlte chambermaid, Fauve, acted as 
secretary. The discussions were long and violent, before 
it was resolved to send another official and admonitory epis- 
tle to Princess Murat, informing her, that " if she did not 
directly renounce her pretensions and plots, and deliver 
up her accomplices, she must abide by, and feel the fatal 
consequences of her refractory spirit. " Her ImperialHigh- 
ness retorted with this laconic billet doux : " Eternal war 
fare rather than such a dishonourable and degrading peace 



»» 



^JS REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

The Empress's privy counsellor, Madame Berlin, in the 
mean time laid before the Sovereign a plan of campaign, 
in case hostilities were unavoidable. She proposed to fix 
her majesty's head-quarters in the milliner's shops of the 
9alais Royal, and in those of its vicinity in the rue St. 
Honork' Some flying cauips were to be formed in the green- 
rooms ot the theatres, and a corps of reserve placed in the 
shops of the milhners on the Boulevards. Strong picquets 
were to patrole Tivoli and Frescati, corps of observation 
quartered in the pavilion of Hanover, the flying artillery 
scour the Thuillerie garden, the Elysian Fields, and the 
Boisde Boulogne ; and the mounted riflemen scout in the 
Luxemburgh garden, and in the faubourg St. Germain. 
The park of heavy artillery she wished to establish in the 
Empress's drawing-rooms at the palaces of the Thuilleries 
and St. Cloud. But the good natured Josephine, judging 
her rival after herself, never came to any determination, 
notwithstanding the frequent rejaresentation of her privy 
counsellor and quartermaster- general, until too late, and 
when she was informed that Princess Murat had opened 
the campaign, by occupying the most advantageous posi- 
ions, and by having surprised several of her Majesty's out- 
posts. 

The pale and trembling privy counsellors of the Empress, 
hardly able to describe the ravages caused in the empire 
of fashion by the machinations of Princess Marat, were the 
first and unwelcome messengers of that disagreeable news ; 
and as it generally happens, when any unexpected disasters 
occur, in which the advisers of Sovereigns are equally guilty 
and hdve an equal share of reproach for not having foreseen 
or prevented it ; instead of uniting all the talents and eflbrts 
to combat a common enemy, they began to quarrel among 
themselves ; divided and coalesced with factions, partisans, 
and adherents of sans-culottism, praising the nudity of our 
first parents, and of course were sworn foes of all fashions 
as well as of all dress. 

Of these unfortunate disagreements in the Empress's ca- 
binet, Princess Murat did not fail to take advantage Pos- 
sessing the same spirit of enterprise and intrigue as the 
Emperor her brother, she planned the most artful ambus- 
cades, where those of the adverse party whom she could 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 909 

not debauch to desertion, were caught and make priso- 
Ders of war. Even the staunch quartermaster-general 
of the Empress's army Madame Bertin, for fear that the 
preceptsof the factionsof nudity and sans-culottism should 
become fashionable, joined the colours of Princess Murat, 
and put on the anti- Josephine regimentals, which shortly 
became the liaut ton, and were, with a barefaced impu- 
dence, worn, not only in all public walks, at the theatres, 
and in ail genteel places of resort, but even in the gardens 
of the Thuilierie, under the windows of the Empress's 
pavillion, and at a ball given by Princess Louis, where both 
the Emperor and the Empress were present. In the 
mean time the Princess's light troops were continually ou 
the alert, and her flying artillery were seen in all directions. 
She seized on her rivals advanced posts, cut of her pi- 
quets, and captured numerous convoys of Brussels lace, 
cambric, linen, and satin, destined for the magazines of Jo^ 
sephine's contractors, but which were carried to, and safely 
delivered into the depots of her Imperial Highness. 

The good Parisians, naturally inclined to be factious, 
were first secret well-wishers, and afterwards, when victo- 
ry accompanied her exploits,the avowed adherents of Prin- 
cess Murat, who, wherever she shewed herself, either in 
the Imperial academy of music, alias the opera, in the 
museums, in the national institute or even in the church- 
es, was hailed, Notre Dame des Victoires ! When the 
weather permitted, she had daily reviews, in the forenoon, 
in the Bois de Boulogne, and at night in the elegant and 
delightful garden of Frescati. Though she often varied 
the accoutrements and manoeuvres of her troops, their 
numbers increased, as the adroitness and popularity of the 
chief made a recruit of every spectator. 

It cannot be supposed that the Empress saw the progress 
of her enemy without some chagrin or that her depression 
banished all activity, and her present humiliation exclud 
ed all future prospects of vengeanee. In hope of gaining 
time to organize her dispersed army, she renewed the ncr 
gotiation with the Princess Murat ; and when these pacific 
overtures were repulsed by the latter, she proposed a con- 
gress, composed of all the other Imperial Princesses of th^ 
hquse of Puonaparte, to accommodate their differenceSj 



300 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

and to decide on the contest. As, however, these Prhice.s- 
ses, instead of being neutral, as the Ennpress pretended, 
where either envious of the superiority which a Princess 
their equal had assumed ; or under promise of ample in- 
demnities, bribed over to Josephine's interest, they could 
not be considered as disinterested, unprejudiced, or im- 
partial powers, and their mediation was of course declined. 
The Empress then applied to her dear Napoleone, to use 
sU his powerful influence, and command a submission 
which her Majesty's arms and intrigues had been unable to 
obtain, The Emperor at first refused to interfere, in what 
he called a war of rags {chiffons ;) but on the representa- 
tion of his Imperial consort, that his own dignity and glori/ 
required it, as he was an indirect partaker of the ridicule 
or contempt offered her, he ordered his aid-de-camp Rapp 
to inform his sister, that she must immediately lay down 
her arms, strip herself and her adhetents of her own co^ 
lours, and put on those of the Empress. 

But few heroines*, as well as heroes, have existed, whom 
repeated successes have not blinded, and a long prosperity 
corrupted, Naturally tormented by vanity and pride, her 
late fortunate campaign had added imprudence and inso- 
lence to her other foibles ; and so far from obeying the or- 
ders of her brother and sovereign, the Princess Murat pro- 
ved by herconduct that she dared his power, and despised 
liis threats. The very next night, at the theatre of the 
Empress, cidevant Theatre de Loiivoisy her Imperial High- 
ness, attended by her guides and Mamelukes, had taken 
possession of all the principal boxes and introduced such 
innovations under the name of improvements, that every 
spectator must have observed disobedience united with 
scandal and audacity, and insult intended with both. She 
"Wore a Ridicule a hi Napoleone, a fichu menteur a la Josep^ 
hine^ a bonnet a ala Pitt, glows a la Grenville, and a bo- 
som-friend a la Windhani,?ind all her troops were attired in 
the same manner. To crush an enemy she had already 
vanquished, and to give the death-blow to the pretentions 
of the Empress in the reign of fashion, she went from the 
theatre to the masquerade at tlie opera-house. There she 
appeared at the head of her valiant warriors in a dress a 
r Arlefpiiu,m^i]e up and put togerher in a most laughable 
manner, of all the different inventions and fashions of Jose- 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 301 

phine, or called after her. To crown the whole, she wore 
a mask an exact resemblance of the Empress's face, with 
this inscription on the front: " Would be twfnty i past 
FIFTY." All the officers of her staff were more or less ac- 
coutred, so as to expose to derision the adversary of their 
general. From the time of her entrance she was surround- 
ed and admired by a crowd of amateurs and applauders, 
so that the police commisary, always present for fear of 
any serious disturbance, interfered, and ordered the Prin- 
cess to unmask, or to withdraw with her companions, 
Bonneau, General Murat's nid-de-camp, who was in th« 
secret, informed the commissary to whom he spoke, and 
that her Imperial Highness's mask and masquerade dress 
w^as merely a badinage. The tumult and jokes at the ex- 
pence of the Empress, however increased, and he thought 
it his duty to send a messenger to the police minister, Fou- 
che, to ask for instruction how to act. This senator and. 
minister in his turn waited upon the Emperor, to obtain 
his sovereign's order how to proceed in such a delicate af- 
fair, where lenity might have been construed into appro- 
bation, and severity punished as a want of respect. About 
two o'clock in the morning Fouche arrived at the opera- 
house, accompanied by fifty gens d'armes, masked as well 
as himself. Without being discovered, they encompassed 
the Princes and her suite, and told them, that on the part 
of the Emperor they were prisoners. Most of them seem- 
ed willing to follow the gens d'armes without further re- 
sistance, and to acknowledg the irresistible power of ba- 
yonets even in the empire of fashion, when Princess Murat 
called out, " Banditti, who is your leader ?"—" I, please 
your Imperial Highness," answered Fouche, " here is the 
Emperor's written order-" He had no sooner uttered these 
words, than the paper with Imperial signature was torn 
to pieces, and himself seized by the nose roughly, that 
he, to the great amusement of the spectators, who called 
encore, bravo ! howled in a most doleful manner. What 
would have been the end of this tragi-comical scene is un- 
certain, had not General Murat arrived just in time to cool 
the courageous fury of the Princess, his wife, who did 
not desert her trembling troops, or consent to surrender, 
but on a most honourable capitulation, that left her and 
them at liberty, while Fouche and his gens d'armes were 
forced to retreat without their prey. 



303 REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH. 

During the remainder of the morning, several messages 
passed between the contending parties, and a parley was 
reciprocally assented to. But what was the Empress's sur- 
prise, when at the first conference Princess Murat inform- 
ed her, that she settled every thing with the Emperor at a 
private audience. She also laid the treaty before her ma- 
jesty, who seeing the PROBATUM — napoleonus empera- 
TOR, signed it without even reading it over. It was a kind 
of a partition treaty, rather favourable to the Princess Mu- 
rat, though she was obliged to give up her pretensions of 
perpetual soverei<:^nty in the empire of fashion. She was 
to be a subject during the months of Brumaire, Frimaire, 
Nivose, Pluviose, and Ventose, when the Empress was 
to sway ; bnt who was in her turn to be a subject during 
the months of Germinal, Floreal, Prairial, Messidor, Ther- 
midor, Fructidor, and Vendemaire, when the Princess 
"Was to be seated on the throne of fashion. The five com- 
plementary days of the republican calender were decreed 
an interregnum, during which the maids of honour of the 
Empress and of the Princess, to exert their genius at emu- 
lation, were permitted to contend by reciprocal ingenuity 
for a temporary supremacy. 

The Editors of Les Nouvelles a la Mairiy which publida- 
tion La guerre des modes or this fashion war, is translated, 
affirms what is know to all Pairs, that the main point of 
the story and of the occurrences is a certain fact, only de- 
corated and composed b}^ them in the jargon used in the 
histories of political wars. It is besides averted, that ever 
since Buonaparte usurped the Consular authority in France, 
iiis wife pretended to dictate the fashion, in which she has 
been often and successfully opposed hy her sister-in-law, 
Madame Murat, who has the advantage of being twenty 
years younger than her rival, being born on the 2jth of 
March 1778, while Madame Napeleone Buonaparte was 
born on the 24th of June 1758. 

Madame Murat, since her elevation to an Imperial 
Princess, has become the proudest, the most arrogant and 
insufferable, of all the Buonapartes, whom an unjust for- 
tune has dragged from obscurity. She continues, how- 
ever, always to profess herself a lover and admirer of li- 
berty and equality, and a sincere republican in her heart. 
The^e contradictions and absurdities are not uncommon in 



'nH 



y 131949, 



THE BUONAPARTE FAMILY. 303 

degraded France, where, since 1789, every rebel pretend- 
ing to, or seizing the reinsof government, has insulted tliose 
slaves he plundered and oppressed, by assuming the mask 
of patriotism, v^^hile every act of his was that of an un- 
conscientious tyrant. 

It is whispered in France, that should any sudden ca- 
tastrophe put an end to the crimes of Napoleone Buona- 
parte, Murat has laid his plans so as to become his imme- 
diate successor, whatever Vills to the contrary are depo- 
sited in the Senate. The troops in and near Paris, un- 
der Murats command as a governor of the capital, have ne- 
ver been less than thirty thousand, all attached to him, 
from his attention to them. He is also the only general 
of Bunoparte's relatives who is known to the army at large 
for any military exploit; and the soldiers' general con- 
tempt for all the other Buonapartes is proverbial over 
France. If he finds himself unable to continue in power, it 
is supposed that he will play the yjart of a Monk, and 
make the best terms he can with the legitimate sovereign 
of France. But in this scheme he has a rival in every 
French general who commajnded an army, all considering 
their present rank, and their plundered wealth, unsafe 
until confirmed and protected by a Bourbon. 

The property of General Murat and his wifeis valued at 
twenty millions of livres. ' Their yearly allowance from 
Napoleone amounts to six millions of livres ; and their jew- 
els, plate, china, pictures, &c. are estimated at seven mil- 
lions. A bishop is the almoner of this revolutionary Prin- 
cess and two grand vicars are her chaplains ; Madame de 
Beauharnois is her lady in waiting, and Madame Cara St. 
Cyr, Madame St. Martin de la Motte, and Madame Le 
Grange, are her maids of honour ; Daligre is her chamber- 
lain, and de Gambis her equerry. 



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